On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 at 01:25, James Cook <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 at 06:13, Alexis Hunt <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 at 01:07, James Cook <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 at 06:05, James Cook <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > However, the use of the word "it" in the text "but already owned it" > >> > in R2602 indicates to me that the text of the rule is written with the > >> > point of view that there's only one of each ribbon colour. Otherwise > >> > it could have been written "but already owned a ribbon of that > >> > colour". > >> > >> Or, maybe, there's at most one ribbon of each colour per player. > >> > >> - Falsifian > > > > > > The critical distinction is that "once for each time the condition is > fulfilled" is not very well defined for a continuous condition. The > condition "If a player has earned a ribbon in the past 7 days but already > owned it" becomes true the moment the ribbon is earned and ceases to be > true 7 days later. And it definitely doesn't become "true twice" if e earns > a ribbon a second time; it just extends the period of time for which it is > true. > > I don't think this is a case of "once for each time the condition is > fulfulled". > > If "(until e earns another ribbon)" were deleted from the text of the > rule, what you're saying would make sense to me. But to me it seems > obvious that the intended meaning of the text "(until e earns another > ribbon)" is something close to "here, the word 'once' means that after > a player triggers this rule, e CANNOT trigger it again until e earns > another ribbon". Can you suggest any other interpretation that the > author of the rule could plausibly have intended? > > - Falsifian > The intent of the rules is excluded entirely from the list of considerations in Rule 217. At this point I am primarily concerned with determining the interpretations permitted by the text, from which point I can use the other factors in Rule 217 to narrow it down. The "until e earns another ribbon" parenthetical does complicate this. It could also reasonably be interpreted as an additional form of time limit. But I think you're close to convincing me that the parenthetical at least forces the "once per time" interpretation is permissible. (Interestingly, though, I'm still unsure that it remains permissible for Rule 2350. Ideally I'd be able to sort that out too.)
