[I don't really know what Agora's standard of scholarly worth is, but
I figure I might as well try. The title refers to this being a
hypothetical judgement about the fictional new past created by
ratification, which in itself is based on a hypothetical change to the
past when the gamestate is "minimally modified".]
I submit the rest of this message as a thesis, and intend it to
qualify for a degree (whichever degree defined by Rule 1367 my peers
find appropriate).
This is a hypothetical judgement of CFJs 3726 and 3727, assuming D.
Margaux's attempt on 2019-05-26 22:50 to ratify a document without
objection was successful. I think it is interesting because it discusses
the question of whether when the Rules refer to the past, they are
referring to a fictional past that can be modified by ratification.
There are past (real) judgements that already consider this question,
but I don't think they go into as much detail as this one.
CFJ 3726 was called by Aris, with the statement: "The most recent
attempted imposition of the Cold Hand of Justice by Aris was effective."
CFJ 3727 was called by D. Margaux, with the statement: "D. Margaux has
more than 0 blots."
1. Arguments
============
There was a long conversation on the discussion list, starting around
when D. Margaux called a CFJ (later withdrawn) on the thread "[Referee]
Recusal (attn H. Arbitor)" in May 2019, and continuing on the thread
"Proto-judgements of CFJs 3726 and 3727" in June 2019. I will not try to
repeat everything here.
2. Sequence of events (all times UTC)
=====================================
2019-05-20 01:25
The Referee publishes a weekly report specifying that D. Margaux has 0
blots.
2019-05-20 20:32
D. Margaux publishes the below document and announces intent to ratify
it "as true at the time 00:00 GMT on 20 May 2019":
{ For purposes of this document, “Politics Rules” and “Spaaace Rules”
have the meaning ascribed to those terms in Proposal 8177.
Any switch created directly by any of the Politics Rules or the
Spaaace Rules has its default value.
There are no currently existing entities or switches created by the
Clork pursuant to the Politics Rules or by the Astronomor pursuant to
the Spaaace Rules. }
2019-05-21 10:20
D. Margaux deputises as Astronomor and Clork to publish the following
weekly reports:
{there are no entities in existence for which the Astronomor is the
recordkeepor other than those created directly by the Rules. All
switches for which the Astronomor is recordkeepor have their default
value.}
{there are no entities in existence for which the Clork is the
recordkeepor other than those directly created by the Rules. All
switches for which the Clork is recordkeepor have their default value.}
2019-05-25 22:02
omd Points eir Finger at D. Margaux for publishing inaccurate
information in the above reports.
2019-05-25 22:54
D. Margaux, the Referee, authorizes the Arbitor, Aris, to act on eir
behalf to "investigate and conclude the investigation of the finger
pointed".
2019-05-26 22:43
Aris attempts to act on D. Margaux's behalf to impose the Cold Hand of
Justice on D. Margaux and fine em 2 blots, with the following message:
> Alright. There was a clear rule violation here, as the information in
the
> report was inaccurate. The violative conduct was undertaken for the
good of
> the game, but there were also other options available (proposal, or
> ratification without objection, which would have been unlikely to
cause any
> problems done correctly). Ordinarily, a rule violation for the good
of the
> game would be a forgiveable one blot fine. Under the circumstances
though,
> some additional penalty is warranted for failing to adequately
consider and
> discuss options that would have avoided violating the rules.
>
> I act on behalf of D. Margaux to impose the Cold Hand of Justice on D.
> Margaux, penalizing em with a forgiveable fine of 2 blots. The required
> words are {optimize, preferentially, consider, supersubtilize,
> adjudication, law, good, bad, future, duty}.
2019-05-26 22:50
D. Margaux ratifies the document e earlier announced intent to ratify.
(This is fictional; in the actual judgement, I explain why this did
not succeed.)
2019-05-27 14:11
D. Margaux calls what is later named CFJ 3727.
2019-05-27 19:58
Aris calls what is later named CFJ 3726.
3. Effectiveness of the fine ignoring ratification
==================================================
It is helpful to first consider whether the attempt to levy a fine would
have been effective if no ratifications had taken place.
I believe that Aris's attempted imposition of the Cold Hand of Justice
by levying a fine (2019-05-26 22:43 message) met the requirements of
Rule 2557, so it remains only to check that it does not run afoul of any
of the conditions in Rule 2531 ("Any attempt to levy a fine is
INEFFECTIVE if...").
Condition 1 of Rule 2531:
The attempt in Aris's message included the value the fine (2 blots) and
the name of the person being fined (D. Margaux). The sentence performing
the action did not specify the specific reason for the fine (message is
copied earlier: "I act on behalf of D. Margaux to impose..."). However,
Aris states the message earlier in the same message "...the information
in the report was inaccurate" which is part of eir attempt, so Condition
1 does not trigger.
Conditions 2 and 3 of Rule 2531:
The officer reports were false at the time they were published. For
example, The Astronomor's 2019-03-05 weekly report states that many
players own Spaceships, and that part of the report has long since
self-ratified (under Rule 2166), but D. Margaux's report claims no
Spaceships exist.
Therefore, ignoring the ratification of the more recent reports,
D. Margaux did commit a rule-breaking action, so these two conditions do
not apply.
Conditions 4 through 8 are straightforward.
Therefore, if D. Margaux's document and reports were never ratified, the
attempted imposition would have been EFFECTIVE, and D. Margaux would
have blots.
4. The timeline hypothesized by rule 1551
=========================================
When D. Margaux ratified eir document on May 26, according to Rule 1551,
the gamestate was "modified to what it would be if, at the time the
ratified document was published, the gamestate had been minimally
modified to make the ratified document as true and accurate as
possible".
(D. Margaux specified 2019-05-20 00:00 GMT as being the time the
document was true, but since the time was not part of the document
itself, it does trigger Rule 1551's clause "if the document explicitly
specifies a different past time...". In any case, I think the document
was published close enough to that time that the effect is the same.)
To understand how Rule 1551 modified the gamestate, the first step is to
understand the minimal modification that is hypothetically applied at
the time the document was published. This minimal modification is clear:
all switches created directly by the Politics and Spaaace Rules are
modified to be at their default values, and all entities and switches
created by the Clork or Astronomor according to those respective Rules
are removed so that they do not exist in the minimally modified
gamestate.
Having understood the hypothetical minimal modification, the next step
is to understand what would have happened from that point in time
onward. We end up with the following timeline:
* D. Margaux publishes correct Astronomor and Clork reports.
* omd Points eir Finger at D. Margaux for publishing inaccurate
information in those reports.
* D. Margaux authorizes Aris to act on eir behalf for the investigation.
* Aris attempts to impose the Cold Hand of Justice, but the attempt is
INEFFECTIVE because D. Margaux did not violate the rules.
In this hypothetical timeline, the appropriate judgement of CFJ 3726
would be FALSE, since Aris's attempted imposition was INEFFECTIVE, and
the appropriate judgement of CFJ 3727 would be FALSE as well, since D.
Margaux did not gain any blots after the 2019-05-20 referee report,
which self-ratified before CFJ 3727 was called.
5. The gamestate after ratification
===================================
After D. Margaux ratified eir document, the gamestate was modified to
what it would be in the hypothetical timeline above. Our task now is to
determine how that modification affects the value of the two CFJs.
I think it is clear that blot holdings are part of the gamestate. For
one thing, they only exist because the game defines em, and are part of
the state that we keep track of, so the terms "game" and "state" fit.
For another, blots are an asset tracked by some recordkeepor (the
Referee), and Rule 2166 states that the portion of a recordkeepor's
report that lists assets is self-ratifying, which wouldn't mean much if
such assets weren't part of the gamestate. Therefore at the end of this
message I would judge CFJ 3727 FALSE if this whole thing weren't
fictional.
The harder question is whether the change to the gamestate affects CFJ
3726. I believe it comes down to this question:
Does the gamestate include information about past events, such as
whether the attempted imposition of the Cold Hand of Justice was
effective, and is CFJ 3726 referring to the information contained in
the gamestate?
If the answers are no, then CFJ 3726 should be judged TRUE, as argued in
Section 3 above. If the answers are yes, then CFJ 3726 should be judged
FALSE, according to the timeline described in Section 4.
I believe the answers are yes, and so at the end of this message I will
judge CFJ 3726 TRUE. Before I say why, I'd like explain why there could
be doubt about this.
6. An interpretation causing CFJ 3726 to be TRUE
=================================================
When the rules talk about a concept that isn't defined by the rules,
we generally assume they're referring to the concept in reality. For
example, the rules don't define what a message is, and they don't define
the meaning of fundamental words like "is", "for", etc.
Therefore it's natural to assume that when the rules discuss what "was",
they are referring to past events. I think it's defensible to assume
that even if the past event being referred to is a legal fiction, the
rules are referring to what the Rules had to say about the legal fiction
in the past, rather than some new legal fiction the Rules currently
define about the past.
To instead say that whenever the Rules refer to the past, they are
referring to some fictitious past defined by the rules, could be said to
be a very drastic statement, requiring strong evidence to back it up.
7. The past is part of the gamestate
====================================
However, I think sufficient evidence does exist to say the gamestate
contains information about past actions, and that the Rules refer to the
gamestate when they talk about the past.
7A. The text of the rules
=========================
To understand the meaning of the term "gamestate", the first place to
look is the Rules. The term is never directly defined, so we must
satisfy ourselves by inferring meaning from context.
It is not unusual to infer meanings of terms in this way. For example, the
rules never directly define what a CFJ is; e.g. you won't find text like "A
Call for Judgement is a ...", but nonetheless we are able to infer that they
are associated with statements, can be judged, etc. I believe this is
supported by Rule 217's instruction to use common sense.
In two places, the text of the Rules implies that the concept of
gamestate includes the past, by talking about the closely-related
concept of ratification:
Rule 1551 says:
Text purportedly about previous instances of ratification (e.g. a
report's date of last ratification) is excluded from ratification.
Rule 2034 says that certain messages constitute self-ratifying claims of
several facts about the past: "such a decision existed", "it had the
number of voters indicated", etc.
In both cases, the rules talk about ratifying facts about the past.
Ratification involves a hypothetical gamestate minimally modified to
make these facts about the past true, which clarifies for us that the
definition of gamestate includes facts about the past. It also seems
likely that the new gamestate after the ratification is intended to
include these facts about the past, which is another way to arrive at
the same clarification.
7B. Past judgements about the past
==================================
Rule 217 instructs us that when the text of the rules is silent,
inconsistent or unclear, we should augment it with past judgements
(among other things).
omd pointed out that the judgement CFJ 3337 [0] relied on
past events being part of the gamestate. Judge G.'s judgement of that CFJ
relied on the assertion that after a document stating the past date of a
player's registration was ratified, that player became eligible to vote
in a decision they otherwise would not have been eligible for, because
the text of the ratified document implied that they were registered at
the start of the voting period.
The judgement of CFJ 2491 [1] also relied on the past being part of the
game state: Judge Yally's judgement was that since a document was
ratified implying that Rodlen became an officer sufficiently long ago
for em to be awarded a green ribbon, e should be awarded a green ribbon.
Both of these judgements support the conclusion that the past is part of
the gamestate.
7C. The best interests of the game
==================================
Rule 217 also instructs us to consider the best interests of the game.
Generally, the purpose of gamestate changes such as the effect of
ratification is to clarify the current situation in the game in order to
allow play to continue smoothly. Consider the following examples where
rules make actions possible or required depending on what happened in
the past:
* Rule 2555: "If a player has neither gained blots nor expunged any
blots from emself in the current Agoran week, e CAN expunge 1 blot
from emself by announcement."
* Rule 2496: Whether a player can earn a reward depends on whether they
have fulfilled the condition in the past 7 days, and also on whether e
has already claimed that reward.
* Many rules allow or require a player to take an action "in a timely
fashion" after a past event.
When a ratification event clarifies the current situation in the game,
it would be helpful if the above examples are among the things that are
clarified. For example, after ratification of a document implying
whether or not a player has gained blots in the current week, that
player can confidently know whether they are able to expunge a blot. All
other things being equal, I think it is in the best interests of the
game if ratification clarifies these examples.
(There may be best-interests-of-the-game arguments going the other way,
e.g. maybe it's easier to untangle some situations if ratification isn't
mucking around with the past. But 7A and 7B still apply.)
We could at this point try to pick and choose just those elements of the
past are directly relevant: e.g. since D. Margaux didn't have any blots
to begin with, CFJ 3726 is not relevant to whether e can expunge any
blots, so CFJ 3726 may not matter to the best interests of the game. But
I think that would be overcomplicating things. If the gamestate includes
the effectiveness of some past actions, it is natural to assume it
includes the effectiveness of all of them.
8. It depends on what the meaning of the word "was" was
=======================================================
There's still a question of interpreting CFJ 3726 itself. I have
concluded that when the Rules refer to the effectiveness of past
actions, they are referring to information in the gamestate about the
past. But CFJ 3726 is not a rule. What does "was effective" mean in the
statement in CFJ 3726?
Rule 591 has guidance on delivering judgements:
The valid judgements for an inquiry case are as follows, based on
the facts and legal situation at the time the inquiry case was
initiated, not taking into account any events since that time:
* FALSE, appropriate if the statement was factually and
logically false
* TRUE, appropriate if the statement was factually and
logically true
I believe "legal situation" means I should base my decision on what the
rules say. Moreover, the CFJ process is more useful if judgements on
statements agree with what the rules say about those statements.
So, I will interpret "was effective" as referring to information about
the past contained in the gamestate.
9. Judgement
============
I would judge CFJ 3726 FALSE if this weren't all hypothetical.
I would judge CFJ 3727 FALSE if this weren't all hypothetical.
[0] https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/?3337
[1] https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/?2491
