COURT GAZETTE (Arbitor's weekly report)
Date of last report: 29 Jan 2019
Date of this report: 07 Feb 2019
Disclaimer: Informational only. No actions are contained in this report.
Information in this report is not self-ratifying.
Open cases (CFJs)
-----------------
3699 called 29 January 2019 by Telnaior, assigned 29 January 2019 to Trigon,
judged TRUE by Trigon 01 February 2019, self-filed motion to reconsider and
recusal 07 February 2019 by Trigon, re-assigned 07 February 2019 to Murphy: "A
Spaceship owned by the Lost and Found Department is in Sector 05."
3700 called 01 February 2019 by G., assigned 03 February 2019 to Trigon: "In
the message quoted in evidence, D. Margaux earned at least 1 coin."
3701 called 01 February 2019 by G., assigned 03 February 2019 to Trigon: "If
the definition of quanging a player had not been explicitly included in the
message in evidence, the attempt to transfer currencies on behalf of
Tenhigitsune would have failed."
3702 called 01 February 2019 by Cuddle Beam, assigned 03 February 2019 to
ATMunn: "If the definition of quanging a player had not been explicitly
included in the message in evidence, the attempt to transfer currencies on
behalf of Tenhigitsune would have failed."
3703 called 6 February 2019 by twg, assigned 6 February 2019 to Murphy: "If and
when -N (negative N) coins are revoked from an entity, where N is a natural
number, that entity's coin balance increases by N."
3704 called 05 February 2019 by D. Margaux, assigned 07 February 2019 to
Murphy: "There were no objections made to D. Margaux’s January 29 intent to
transfer to players other than emself and eir zombie the spaceships in the lost
& found department."
Highest numbered case: 3704
Context/arguments/evidence are included at the bottom of this report.
Recently-delivered verdicts and implications
--------------------------------------------
3695 called 15 January 2019 by twg, assigned 16 January 2019 to G., judged
FALSE 29 January 2019 by G.: "Tenhigitsune has fulfilled eir obligation,
detailed in the rule entitled 'Space Battles', to 'once communicate to the
resolver the amount of Energy [e wishes] to spend' in Space Battle 0001."
3696 called 15 January 2019 by twg, assigned 16 January 2019 to G., judged
FALSE 30 January 2019 by G.: "D. Margaux has fulfilled eir obligation, detailed
in the rule entitled 'Space Battles', to 'once communicate to the resolver the
amount of Energy [e wishes] to spend" in Space Battle 0001."
3697 called 20 January 2019 by D. Margaux, assigned to G. 29 January 2019,
judged TRUE 01 February 2019 by G. : "D. Margaux won the game by politics in
this message."
3698 called 22 January 2019 by D. Margaux, assigned to G. 29 January 2019,
judged FALSE 30 January 2019 by G.: "D. Margaux committed at least
1,000,000,000 rule violations."
Day Court Judge Recent
------------------------------
D. Margaux 3685, 3686, 3690*, 3691*, 3694
[11/02 11/02 12/25 12/25 01/20]
G. 3679, 3680, 3688, 3691, 3695, 3696, 3697, 3698
[11/2 11/2 11/11 12/2 01/16 01/16 01/29 01/29]
Murphy 3682, 3678, 3687, 3689, 3703, 3699*
[11/1 11/4 11/10 11/14 02/06 02/07]
Trigon 3683, 3684, 3692, 3699, 3700, 3701
[11/1 11/1 01/08 01/29 02/03 02/03]
Weekend Court Judge Recent (generally gets half as many cases)
------------------------------
* Indicates that the CFJ was reassigned to this judge.
(These are informal designations. Requests to join/leave a given court
will be noted. Individual requests to be assigned a specific case will
generally be honored, even for non-court judges.)
Context/arguments/evidence
--------------------------
********************* CFJ 3695 and CFJ 3696
***3695 & 3696 Background message from twg:
I act on behalf of Tenhigitsune to announce that e will spend rau
Energy in Space Battle 0001, where "rau" is a word in twgese, which is
a constructed language invented by me. (Other twgese words include
"quang" and "spaaace".)
Go ahead, CFJ this. You know you want to
***3695 & 3696 response by ais523
I recommend searching the CFJ archives and/or Agoran mailing lists for
"nkeplwgplxgioyzjvtxjnncsqscvntlbdqromyeyvlhkjgteaqnneqgujjpwcbyfrpueoydjjk".
(It's not a very commonly used word, after all!)
And as a followup, the most relevant of the many nkep precedents
appears to be CFJ 2625 (which is almost exactly this situation,
attempting to act on behalf of another player using a word that has not
been publicly defined). I disagree with the outcome of that case (as
you can see from the arguments), and I'm not sure it gives us any
guidance for sorting out this situation anyway (as unlike in CFJ 2625,
there's no reason to suppose that the player in question knows the
meaning of the word, nor that they are paying enough attention to the
game to object to an attempt to use it incorrectly).
***3695 & 3696 arguement from D. Margaux:
I have no idea how this resolves.
One reason this might not work is that the rule requires Tenhigitsune
to “communicate” eir choice, and Rule 2466 prohibits you from acting
on behalf of em to send a “message” (or synonymously, to “publish”
something). The only thing you can do is take the underlying game
action on eir behalf—but here there seems to be no action separate
from the very act of sending a message (i.e., “communicat[ing]”).
***3695 & 3696 response by twg to D. Margaux:
I see your Rule 2466/1 and raise you CFJ 3649.
-twg
***3695 & 3696 response by twg to ais523:
Actually, I don't think this is the same scenario. twgese is just a
mechanism for ensuring that the value of the number Tenhigitsune has
announced is unknown to D. Margaux; the nature of the action that is
being taken is perfectly cromulent to everybody. (Unless it fails for
another reason.)
-twg
***3695 & 3696 arguement from G. responding to twg:
There's a fairly established set of decisions that says public communication
has to be intelligible to "a typical Agoran" and not just a single Agoran -
that's the AGAINT precedents, arguably more famous than nkep.
History of AGAINT: Someone privately communicated with the Assessor
ahead of voting to say "when I vote AGAINT, it's a vote FOR." Everyone
not in the know assumed it was a typo and a clear vote AGAINST. Result:
using a private language/code doesn't work, it either fails entirely or
has the assumed typo meaning (depending on context).
***3695 & 3696 response by D. Margaux:
Here’s a thought experiment to sharpen the point.
Imagine that I don’t know any Spanish at all, but I’ve been told that
“uno” is a number in that language (but not which number it is). I
then give the message, “I spend uno energy.” If twg speaks Spanish and
knows that word, then have I communicated to him a choice of energy
expenditure here? I think yes: the communicative content of the
message does not depend on my internal mental state, but instead upon
the signs that I am transmitting in broader social context, which is
one where “uno” definitely means “one” (even if I don’t know that
myself).
Or what if I am told that -e^(i * pi) is a positive integer, but don’t
know which one it is and refuse to google it. Do I communicate a valid
choice if I tell twg that I choose -e^(i * pi)?
If “rau” signifies a number in a legitimate language that twg
understands (twgese), then my election of rau+1 should work in the
same way as “uno” and “e^(i * pi)” do in the above hypotheticals.
However, I think that “rau” actually doesn’t signify a number in any
language (because private languages are impossible), and so twg didn’t
actually communicate a number when e sent eir message and my election
of rau+1 also doesn’t work.
> On Jan 15, 2019, at 6:16 PM, D. Margaux <dmargaux...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> On Jan 15, 2019, at 5:49 PM, Timon Walshe-Grey <m...@timon.red> wrote:
>>
>> Actually, at the time you posted the quoted message, "rau" meant "a pigeon
>> or dove", so your statement is clearly incorrect. twgese is, after all, an
>> evolving language - the meanings of words change all the time.
>
> I apologize, I should have been more precise.
>
> I spend rau + 1 energy, but I use the word “rau” in this context in an
> anachronistic sense to mean what “rau” meant in twgese at the time you sent
> your first message with the word “rau.” Hope this clarifies things. :-)
>
>> Also, I think your attempt to announce the Energy you will spend fails,
>> because I have no idea what you thought "rau" meant, so your message did not
>> communicate that information to me.
>
> I don’t think this is quite right. You can never know precisely what I think
> anything means, because you can’t perceive directly into my mind.
> Accordingly, it cannot be a precondition to successful communication that you
> must know my private mental meanings if any (because that could never be
> satisfied). Instead, what you can perceive are the signs and symbols that I
> convey to you; and those signs and symbols are imbued with meaning by their
> history of usage by a community of language speakers/writers. So you don’t
> need to know what (if anything) I “thought rau meant” in my mind; instead,
> all that is required for successful communication is that you evaluate the
> meaning of the signs and symbols I convey to you in their full social context.
>
> Here, evidently, rau is a twgese word that had a particular meaning that you
> yourself know at the time you first used it. So that’s what I’ve communicated
> to you in my message. :-)
>
> [[As a more serious aside, I think the logic I’m laying out in this email is
> essentially the reason why the later Wittgenstein demonstrated that private
> languages such as twgese are impossible. So actually “rau” has no meaning in
> either of our emails. But it’s been a long time since I had to think about
> Wittgenstein, so I may have garbled the logic of it.]]
*** 3695 & 3696 proto-judgement from G.:
The exact CFJ statement does not extend the quote far enough. The full
text is:
> SHALL each once communicate to the resolver the amount
> of Energy they wish to spend in the battle, via any method that
> cannot be understood by the other combatant until e has also
> fulfilled this obligation.
The "via any method that cannot be understood" is part of the SHALL
requirement. So the requirement is fulfilled when a combatant communicates
to the resolver, without being understood by the other combatant.
Now, to communicate is to be understood; that is, common use of the term
includes the notion that information is successfully imparted, and if
understanding is not actually received, communication did not occur (example
use: "what we have here, is a failure to communicate.")
So: the combatant must be understood by the resolver, without being
understood by the other combatant.
No one can ever be sure that anyone else truly "understands" something, but
we can use the standard of what a "typical current Agoran" might understand.
So the communication must be made via a method that a typical Agoran would
understand, but a different typical Agoran wouldn't understand.
Clearly, this is impossible if the method uses public information for all
communication on the matter. To use the "typical" Agoran as a standard is
to assume that both parties, given the same public information, would come
to the same understanding. If a hash (or "secret language") is used, then
when the hash is first published, neither party understands/has been
communicated to. When the translation is published, both parties
understand. There is never a time when one of the typical Agorans
understands, but not the other.
Of course, if one of the Agorans is possessed of private information (e.g. a
code arranged with the resolver ahead of time, that e understands), this is
trivial to arrange, as it becomes "a typical Agoran with information X
understands X, something that a typical Agoran without information X doesn't
understand". Which makes perfect sense.
But under the assumption that the method of communication is entirely
conducted in public, FALSE: these conditions are never met.
***3695 & 3696 response by twg to proto-judgement:
On Wednesday, January 16, 2019 12:48 AM, Kerim Aydin <ke...@uw.edu> wrote:
> Of course, if one of the Agorans is possessed of private information (e.g. a
> code arranged with the resolver ahead of time, that e understands), this is
> trivial to arrange, as it becomes "a typical Agoran with information X
> understands X, something that a typical Agoran without information X doesn't
> understand". Which makes perfect sense.
Hold on, isn't that exactly what happened here? "rau" is effectively
(if we strip away all the fluff about constructed languages, which was
a fun excuse but isn't really relevant) a secret code devised for
communication between the resolver (me) and the person who first used
it in a public message (coincidentally, also me).
If the original attempt failed at all, I would have expected it to be
because of R2466's prohibition of sending-messages-on-behalf. I
realise that contradicts CFJ 3649 but to be honest I'm not 100%
certain, in hindsight, that that judgement was correct anyway.
*** 3695 & 3696 response by G. to D. Margaux:
On 1/16/2019 5:37 AM, D. Margaux wrote:>
>> On Jan 16, 2019, at 4:10 AM, Timon Walshe-Grey <m...@timon.red> wrote:
>> If the original attempt failed at all, I would have expected it to be
>> because of R2466's prohibition of sending-messages-on-behalf. I realise
>> that contradicts CFJ 3649 but to be honest I'm not 100% certain, in
>> hindsight, that that judgement was correct anyway.
>
> I agree that CFJ 3649 is poorly reasoned and probably shouldn’t be
> followed. It’s not obvious that the judge of that CFJ knew of the
> prohibition against sending messages when “acting on behalf.”
I remember disagreeing with 3649 it at the time, can't remember if I
attempted to file a Motion or just discussed it a bit and let it pass. In
any case, here's my take on Tenhigitsune's case (proto-judgement):
tl;dr you can't "communicate to" someone on behalf of a zombie because you
can't send messages on their behalf.
In general, in Agora, we abstract a lot of things (real currencies become
virtual currencies, etc.) However, we are grounded in some baseline
realities. Of course, some of those "realities", such as whether free will
exists, are deep philosophical questions - over time, Agora has built up
some precedents around those.
One such precedent is in CFJ 1895 (a discussion of free will and
Aristotelian causality). This found that a "baseline axiom" in Agora is
that the game is played by discrete, identifiable agents of free will -
i.e. "natural persons". The assumption is that "personhood" is absolute -
you can create a legal construct that accepts one person's actions on
behalf of another, but the agent never "becomes" the other person.
This fundamental assumption extents to the concept of "knowledge". Because
each person's knowledge is fundamentally independent, an actor cannot "pass
on a principal's knowledge" (i.e. "communicate to") a third party. Again,
we could put in Rules-language to create a legal fiction that allows it,
but such communication cannot happen naturally.
Currently, the R2466 explicitly forbids the legal fiction that an actor can
act on behalf of a principal to "send a message". While the context of
"send a message" is generally "send an email", in this case it should be
taken colloquially and broadly - one can "send a message" in a variety of
ways. So in the broader context, "sending a message" is simply to
"communicate" to someone, whether via email, in-person, or a horse's head
in someone's bed.
So an actor cannot communicate with anyone on-behalf-of a principal. In
R2466 this is explicit, but even without the prohibition in R2466, it is
impossible: as per CFJ 1895 "Every assumed act of free will can be traced
to a particular person's desire. Thus, as final cause and intention, this
intention, and free will is, also non-transferable, in the most fundamental
sense." The "act of communicating" is fundamentally an act of free will,
an act traceable to a particular person's desire. And that person is the
actor, not the principal[*].
The Rule "Space Battles" states that a certain action is accomplished by
communicating to another party - the communication is the action. The Rule
is Power-1. R2466 is power-3, so this trumps any ability that might be
implied in lower-powered rules, and as discussed above, there's no
"natural" ability for an actor to communicate on behalf of a principal[**].
Therefore, a person CANNOT act on behalf of another to communicate the
required information.
[*] This is specific to cases where the actor "originated" the original
thought (i.e. the origin of the message was the actor's free will, not the
principal's). For example, if the Principal (of eir own accord) sends a
message to a private party, and the private party forwards the message to a
forum, it's possible to find that the Principal communicated with the forum
"via the private party". But this is only true if the Principal, as an
agent of free will, originated the content of the message.
[**] This discussion of what may happen "naturally" is necessary because
it's physically impossible to block two free agents from communicating: a
rule that says "two people CANNOT communicate about X" would have no
meaning when the two people actually did so, which is why we use SHALL NOT
to control acts of communication between free agents. So if R2466 were
purporting to invalidate communications between free agents, it would fail
due to physical reality.
*** 3695 & 3696 further response by G. to D. Margaux:
On 1/15/2019 4:05 PM, D. Margaux wrote:
>>> I CFJ, barring D. Margaux: "D. Margaux has fulfilled eir obligation,
>>> detailed in the rule entitled 'Space Battles', to 'once communicate to
>>> the resolver the amount of Energy [e wishes] to spend" in Space Battle
>>> 0001."
I think this is a very different situation then the zombie one, and there's
a strong case to be made for TRUE. So starting a different thread here.
Let's say D. Margaux and twg had the following private conversation:
twg: I've picked a secret number - I'll call it tau. Here's a hash so
you know that I've chosen what tau is ahead of time.
D. Margaux: Sure, I'll bite: I wish to spend tau+1.
twg: Right, I now know exactly how much you wish to spend.
Then when twg later publishes both sides, e reveals the hash contents, and
tau has a reasonable, appropriate value.
Now there's two ways to adjudicate this:
1. "communicate to the resolver the amount of Energy" must be judged
strictly with all the onus of communication on the combatant. That is, D.
Margaux's messages alone must contain sufficient information to communicate
a value to any typical Agoran observer privy to D. Margaux's messages (but
not privy to the contents of the hash). This would result in false.
2. "communicate to the resolver [twg]" can include context known to twg.
Here, D. Margaux of eir own free will communicated sufficient information to
twg for the value to be determined by the resolver. While risky on D.
Margaux's part, it was eir risk to take, of eir own free will. This would
result in true.
In general, for private conversations, we've tended to lean towards #2:
allowing lingo and context to evolve, or allowing private contracts /
communications to work. That allows for more flexible, enjoyable gameplay
(where "clever arrangements" are part of that). The downside is, if done in
an official context (not a contract), it puts some onus on the Resolver to
privately decide if weird communication attempts qualify (if e publicly
reveals the two combatant's values, and one turns out to be invalidly
submitted, e's revealed the other combatant's value too early and has broken
the rules). This might be especially onerous/unfair if the duty falls to
"the non-combatant who has least recently registered".
If we find in favor of #2, there's a secondary question: whether we take
twg's word that e had set a definition for tau ahead of time, so that D.
Margaux's 'tau+1' communication uniquely defined a value when it was made.
So it's basically a "what standard of evidence do we accept?" case rather
than a "what constitutes communication".
That's worth thinking about, but first I was curious at other people's
thoughts between #1 and #2.
***3695 judgement by G.:
Er, I never actually stated the judgement.
I judge FALSE in CFJ 3695, with the arguments below (I edited in a "FALSE"
in the judgement below as well, to keep it all together).
On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 2:08 PM Kerim Aydin <ke...@uw.edu> wrote:
>
> 3695 called 15 January 2019 by twg, assigned 16 January 2019 to G.:
> "Tenhigitsune has fulfilled eir obligation, detailed in the rule
> entitled 'Space Battles', to 'once communicate to the resolver the
> amount of Energy [e wishes] to spend" in Space Battle 0001."
>
>
> [Unchanged from proto-judgement]
>
> I deliver the following judgement for CFJ 3695:
>
> tl;dr you can't "communicate to" someone on behalf of a zombie because you
> can't send messages on their behalf.
>
> In general, in Agora, we abstract a lot of things (real currencies become
> virtual currencies, etc.) However, we are grounded in some baseline
> realities. Of course, some of those "realities", such as whether free will
> exists, are deep philosophical questions - over time, Agora has built up
> some precedents around those.
>
> One such precedent is in CFJ 1895 (a discussion of free will and
> Aristotelian causality). This found that a "baseline axiom" in Agora is
> that the game is played by discrete, identifiable agents of free will -
> i.e. "natural persons". The assumption is that "personhood" is absolute -
> you can create a legal construct that accepts one person's actions on
> behalf of another, but the agent never "becomes" the other person.
>
> This fundamental assumption extents to the concept of "knowledge". Because
> each person's knowledge is fundamentally independent, an actor cannot "pass
> on a principal's knowledge" (i.e. "communicate to") a third party. Again,
> we could put in Rules-language to create a legal fiction that allows it,
> but such communication cannot happen naturally.
>
> Currently, the R2466 explicitly forbids the legal fiction that an actor can
> act on behalf of a principal to "send a message". While the context of
> "send a message" is generally "send an email", in this case it should be
> taken colloquially and broadly - one can "send a message" in a variety of
> ways. So in the broader context, "sending a message" is simply to
> "communicate" to someone, whether via email, in-person, or a horse's head
> in someone's bed.
>
> So an actor cannot communicate with anyone on-behalf-of a principal. In
> R2466 this is explicit, but even without the prohibition in R2466, it is
> impossible: as per CFJ 1895 "Every assumed act of free will can be traced
> to a particular person's desire. Thus, as final cause and intention, this
> intention, and free will is, also non-transferable, in the most fundamental
> sense." The "act of communicating" is fundamentally an act of free will,
> an act traceable to a particular person's desire. And that person is the
> actor, not the principal[*].
>
> The Rule "Space Battles" states that a certain action is accomplished by
> communicating to another party - the communication is the action. The Rule
> is Power-1. R2466 is power-3, so this trumps any ability that might be
> implied in lower-powered rules, and as discussed above, there's no
> "natural" ability for an actor to communicate on behalf of a principal[**].
> Therefore, a person CANNOT act on behalf of another to communicate the
> required information. I find FALSE.
>
> [*] This is specific to cases where the actor "originated" the original
> thought (i.e. the origin of the message was the actor's free will, not the
> principal's). For example, if the Principal (of eir own accord) sends a
> message to a private party, and the private party forwards the message to a
> forum, it's possible to find that the Principal communicated with the forum
> "via the private party". But this is only true if the Principal, as an
> agent of free will, originated the content of the message.
>
> [**] This discussion of what may happen "naturally" is necessary because
> it's physically impossible to block two free agents from communicating: a
> rule that says "two people CANNOT communicate about X" would have no
> meaning when the two people actually did so, which is why we use SHALL NOT
> to control acts of communication between free agents. So if R2466 were
> purporting to invalidate communications between free agents, it would fail
> due to physical reality.
>
***3696 judgement by G.:
3696 called 15 January 2019 by twg, assigned 16 January 2019 to G.:
"D. Margaux has fulfilled eir obligation, detailed in the rule
entitled 'Space Battles', to 'once communicate to the resolver the
amount of Energy [e wishes] to spend" in Space Battle 0001."
Judgement on CFJ 3696:
Let's say D. Margaux and twg had the following private conversation:
twg: I've picked a secret number - I'll call it tau. Here's a hash so
you know that I've chosen what tau is ahead of time.
D. Margaux: Sure, I'll bite: I wish to spend tau+1.
twg: Right, I now know exactly how much you wish to spend.
Then when twg later publishes both sides, e reveals the hash contents,
and tau has a reasonable, appropriate value.
Now there's two ways to adjudicate this:
1. "communicate to the resolver the amount of Energy" must be judged
strictly with all the onus of communication on the combatant. That is,
D. Margaux's messages alone must contain sufficient information to
communicate a value to any typical Agoran observer privy to D. Margaux's
messages (but not privy to the contents of the hash). This would result
in false.
2. "communicate to the resolver [twg]" can include context known to
twg. Here, D. Margaux of eir own free will communicated sufficient
information to twg for the value to be determined by the resolver.
While risky on D. Margaux's part, it was eir risk to take, of eir own
free will. This would result in true.
In general, for private conversations, we've tended to lean towards #2:
allowing lingo and context to evolve, or allowing private contracts /
communications to work. That allows for more flexible, enjoyable game
play (where "clever arrangements" are part of that). However, if we
find this works in all cases, consider the following communication:
twg: Your opponent has told me how much energy e wishes to spend.
Let's call that number tau.
D. Margaux: I wish to spend tau + 1.
And of course, twg's communication isn't necessary, D. Margaux could
simply say "I wish to spend whatever the other combatant spent, +1".
This clearly defeats the intent of the combat; moreover, allowing this
sort of conversation allows the combatant to act on unknown information
that's required (by rule) to be kept from em.
To allow for flexible play, then, without using others' secrets,
requires something of a middle ground. To that end, I would suggest the
following: that if the person originating the "wished/desired" spending
doesn't have reasonably sufficient information (at the time of
communication) to know eir wish, then e cannot actually communicate eir
wish. This allows some degree of encoding that's only known to the
resolver - e.g. the resolver can say "use my public key to encode your
spend and I'll use my private key to decode it". But the fundamental
"wished value" has to be known to D. Margaux (as an absolute value, not
in reference to unknown values) for em to communicate it to twg.
So, since this sort of communication wouldn't work in the "pure" case
(where the value is provably set-in-advance via a resolver's hash), we
don't have to delve into situations where the encoding was less
provable, as in this one. I find FALSE.
********************* CFJ 3698 and CFJ 3699
***3698 & 3699 scam context from D. Margaux:
In this message, I use the following abbreviations for political parties:
COS - Costume Conservatives
PLA - Platonic Isolationists
NPR - New Punchbowl Reformers
SUL - Substance Use Liberals
MLP - Official Raving Monster Looney Party
Pursuant to Rule 2542, as Arbitor, I award myself 1,000,000,000 favours in COS.
I spend 12,000,000 Costume Conservative favours to purchase 4,000,000 favours
in PLA.
I spend 12,000,000 Costume Conservative favours to purchase 4,000,000 favours
in NPR.
I spend 12,000,000 Costume Conservative favours to purchase 4,000,000 favours
in SUL.
I spend 12,000,000 Costume Conservative favours to purchase 4,000,000 favours
in MLP.
I hereby spend favours to purchase influence over the corresponding politician,
as specified in the table below:
Name Favours Spent Echelon Influence Purchased
------------------------- ------------------- ------- -------------------
Alexander the Mediocre 100,000 NPR Favours RR 200,000
Hillary Rodham Clinton 100,000 NPR Favours Row 150,000
Jim "Banana Jim" Bennett 100,000 NPR Favours RR 200,000
Zeno of Citium 100,000 NPR Favours Row 150,000
Benjamin Surreali 100,000 MLP Favours Row 150,000
Lex Luthor 100,000 MLP Favours Row 150,000
Napoleon Blownapart 100,000 MLP Favours RR 200,000
Zeno of Elea 100,000 MLP Favours RR 200,000
Kim Ping Pong 99,999 PLA Favours Power 66,666
Loseston Churchvalley 100,000 PLA Favours Upper 100,000
Politician McP[1] 100,000 PLA Favours Upper 100,000
Xi Kingpin 100,000 PLA Favours Row 100,000
The Princess of Andorra 100,000 SUL Favours RR 200,000
Theresa Cannot 100,000 SUL Favours RR 200,000
The Wicked Witch OTW[2] 100,000 SUL Favours Row 150,000
Eric 100,000 SUL Favours Row 150,000
Ronald Ray-Gun 100,000 COS Favours Upper 100,000
The Fall Guy 100,000 COS Favours RR 200,000
Genghis Khaaaaaan 100,000 COS Favours Upper 100,000
John Carter 100,000 COS Favours RR 200,000
[1] Politician McPoliticianface
[2] The Wicked Witch of the West
I announce that I advise the politicians reflected in the table below:
Post Politician
--------- ---------------------------
Host Kim Ping Pong
Planner Genghis Khaaaaaan
Enforcer Ronald Ray-Gun
Organizer Politician McPoliticianface
Creep Loseston Churchvalley
Schmoozer Hillary Rodham Clinton
Decorator Zeno of Citium
Loner Eric
Drunk Lex Luthor
Mystery Xi Kingpin
Wild One The Wicked Witch of the West
Hat Rack Benjamin Surreali
***3698 caller D. Margaux's message and arguements:
I have 25 balloons. I hereby spend 24 balloons to win the game.
I point my finger at myself for giving out favours in violation of the rules
and I throw myself on the mercy of the court.
I CFJ: “D. Margaux won the game by politics in this message.”
***3698 & 3699 response by Aris:
Winning by flagrant rule violations is generally thought to be uncouth. I’m
not sure the Agoran public will be inclined to let you keep the win. I
would also like to point out that, technically, each favor gained may be a
seperate rule violation, depending on how exactly the relevant provisions
are written. The penalties incurred could be quite substantial.
I intend to impeach the Arbitor with 2 Agoran Consent.
-Aris
***3698 & 3699 email chain & 3699 caller D. Margaux's message:
I didn’t plan to abuse any of the other powers of Arbitor, but this could solve
that concern:
I CFJ barring Aris: “D. Margaux committed at least 1,000,000,000 rule
violations.”
I authorize twg to act on my behalf to assign this CFJ to any player other than
emself, and thereafter to act on my behalf to exercise any other lawful powers
of the Arbitor in relation to this CFJ.
(I think this works under the Corona-coin-gift precedent, if twg agrees.)
> On Jan 22, 2019, at 6:19 AM, Timon Walshe-Grey <m...@timon.red> wrote:
>
> I don't even know where to start figuring this out, so it would be good to
> CFJ "D. Margaux has committed at least 1,000,000,000 rule violations", but we
> need some way to get it assigned without D. Margaux interfering via eir
> position as Arbitor (the earliest e can be impeached is Friday).
>
> Any ideas? A Cabinet Order of Certiorari would work, but only if ATMunn wants
> to judge it emself.
>
> -twg
>
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> On Monday, January 21, 2019 5:43 AM, Aris Merchant
>> <thoughtsoflifeandligh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> In any case, I think it's clear that e must be given the maximum
>> possible sentence. After all "The fine SHOULD be increased to the
>> degree that the violation is willful, profitable, egregious, or an
>> abuse of an official position.", and this is all of the above.
>>
>> -Aris
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 4:25 PM Aris Merchant
>> thoughtsoflifeandligh...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> Unfortunately, I think the common definition makes it rather clear what’s
>>> going on. It’s definitely 1,000,000,000 actions, according to CFJ 3597, but
>>> I think that CFJ may also suggest that we can only levy one fine (I’m not
>>> sure about that though).
>>> -Aris
>>>> On Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 4:17 PM Timon Walshe-Grey m...@timon.red wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Oh, please say I can levy 1,000,000,000 fines. That would be awesome.
>>>> ...Maybe not for D. Margaux. :/
>>>> Incidentally, I just did a brief ruleset skim for something that might
>>>> indicate whether this was 1 action or 1,000,000,000, and uncovered a
>>>> different issue: I can't find any definition of "award" for assets. The
>>>> official verb in R2577 is "grant". Are we sure that "awarding" favours
>>>> actually does anything at all?
>>>> -twg
***3698 judgement by G.:
On Jan 29, 2019, at 12:16 PM, D. Margaux <dmargaux...@gmail.com> wrote:
3697 called 20 January 2019 by D. Margaux, currently unassigned: "D.
Margaux won the game by politics in this message."
Since this is the first win attempt with these rules, I'll need to step
through and make sure it doesn't break in unexpected places - so later on
this one.
3698 called 22 January 2019 by D. Margaux, currently unassigned: "D.
Margaux committed at least 1,000,000,000 rule violations."
I deliver the following judgement on CFJ 3698:
The text containing the alleged violations was:
Pursuant to Rule 2542, as Arbitor, I award myself 1,000,000,000 favours in
COS.
The rule text in question in R2542 is:
The following officers CAN by announcement award Favours in the
listed Parties, but SHALL NOT do so except as required by rule.
- Arbitor and Referee: the Party holding Justice.
The attempt to award 1,000,000 favors was governed by a "CAN but SHALL NOT
except as required", and the favour award(s) weren't required, so these are
the alleged violations. So the question is (1) did it succeed and (2) if it
did succeed, did it amount 1,000,000,000 penalties? By R2531(7), a single
instance of "conduct" (i.e. a single act) can only be punished once - this
reduces to the question "was an award of 1,000,000,000 favors written as a
single sentence a single act of conduct?"
First, on the success (By R2531(2), we don't punish failed attempts at rules
violations unless No Faking applies). One question is whether "award" means
anything in the context of Favours. There's no explicit definition of the
process - (when this was first enacted a couple years ago, "award" did have
an explicit definition for assets IIRC). As a common definition "award"
means "to give something" so it should amount to the recipient getting it -
the question is whether there's a source. Fortunately, R2577 defines
"granting" assets as creating them in the recipient's possession, and I find
that "award" is a close enough synonym to "grant" in this context for this
to work (evidence: in my real life budgeting, "grants and awards" is a
specific line item category and everyone uses them interchangeably for the
most part).
I can find no other reason that the act(s) would have failed, so they
succeeded.
How many acts? A single act of granting (of N favours) can be performed
practically as N acts of 1 favour. CFJ 3597 made it clear, though, that
they are not wholly interchangable, and it depends on the authorizing rule
in question. In CFJ 3597, it was found that when the rules say "you have
to spend N coins to perform single act X", those have to be made as a single
payment (a single act). So if you try to transfer N coins when you only have
N-1 coins, the whole thing fails a single act, you don't transfer a partial
sum. Conversely, R2449 makes it clear that the award of a champion is a
single once-only award per win. So if I say "I award the patent title
Champion to D. Margaux 500 times" and D. Margaux only won 499 times, it's
treated as if I wrote out 500 awards with 499 succeeding and the last one
failing.
So it depends on the text of the rule in question. In this case, R2542
pluralizes "favours" in "CAN...award favours"; moreover, later it describes
an award of 3 favours as a requirement for a single act. This suitably
implies that, by default, a single statement "awarding N favours" is a
single act. (I say "by default" because it's likely possible to override
this - for example by saying "I make N awards of 1 each").
Therefore, this award of 1,000,000,000 favours in this situation was a
single act, and a single rules violation. I find FALSE.
-G.
********************* CFJ 3699
***3699 caller Trigon's message & context:
The problem there is that it's Rule 2576 itself that specifies the asset's
destruction if it leaves the hands of the specified class, should a class have
been specified (which, for spaceships, it has). If that's seen to contradict
the clause that the Lost and Found Department can own anything, then No Cretans
Need Apply says that it can indeed own anything. Then again, that contradiction
might not invalidate the part where the asset gets destroyed anyway.
Eh, what the heck, it's free.
I CFJ barring D. Margaux "A Spaceship owned by the Lost and Found Department is
in Sector 05". This basically comes down to whether or not the Spaceship in
question was destroyed upon transfer to the Lost and Found Department when I
was deregistered by FAGE. (I'm guessing the spaceship from zombie-me was
self-ratified out of existence by now regardless, which simplifies things a
little)
On 2019-01-30 03:44, D. Margaux wrote:
On Jan 29, 2019, at 11:36 AM, Madeline <j...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
Are you sure? The Spaceship I possessed as a zombie was deemed to have been
destroyed the moment it entered the L&F office upon my deregistration two weeks
ago.
Under Rule 2576 (power=3), “Rules to the contrary notwithstanding, the Lost and
Found Department can own assets of every type.” I think that trumps any other
rule that would purport to limit ownership of spaceships to players.
***3697 judgement by G.:
On 1/30/2019 1:06 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote:
On Jan 29, 2019, at 12:16 PM, D. Margaux <dmargaux...@gmail.com> wrote:
3697 called 20 January 2019 by D. Margaux, currently unassigned: "D.
Margaux won the game by politics in this message."
I deliver the following judgement in CFJ 3697:
TRUE. The actions in the messages in evidence, below, resulted in a
successful win (no mistakes found in the actions or the rules text).
EVIDENCE
Message 1 (BUS: Scam Part 1):
On 1/20/2019 3:56 PM, D. Margaux wrote:
In this message, I use the following abbreviations for political parties:
COS - Costume Conservatives
PLA - Platonic Isolationists
NPR - New Punchbowl Reformers
SUL - Substance Use Liberals
MLP - Official Raving Monster Looney Party
Pursuant to Rule 2542, as Arbitor, I award myself 1,000,000,000 favours
in COS.
I spend 12,000,000 Costume Conservative favours to purchase 4,000,000
> favours in PLA.
I spend 12,000,000 Costume Conservative favours to purchase 4,000,000
> favours in NPR.
I spend 12,000,000 Costume Conservative favours to purchase 4,000,000
> favours in SUL.
I spend 12,000,000 Costume Conservative favours to purchase 4,000,000
> favours in MLP.
I hereby spend favours to purchase influence over the corresponding
> politician, as specified in the table below:
Name Favours Spent Echelon Influence Purchased
------------------------- ------------------- ------- -------------------
Alexander the Mediocre 100,000 NPR Favours RR 200,000
Hillary Rodham Clinton 100,000 NPR Favours Row 150,000
Jim "Banana Jim" Bennett 100,000 NPR Favours RR 200,000
Zeno of Citium 100,000 NPR Favours Row 150,000
Benjamin Surreali 100,000 MLP Favours Row 150,000
Lex Luthor 100,000 MLP Favours Row 150,000
Napoleon Blownapart 100,000 MLP Favours RR 200,000
Zeno of Elea 100,000 MLP Favours RR 200,000
Kim Ping Pong 99,999 PLA Favours Power 66,666
Loseston Churchvalley 100,000 PLA Favours Upper 100,000
Politician McP[1] 100,000 PLA Favours Upper 100,000
Xi Kingpin 100,000 PLA Favours Row 100,000
The Princess of Andorra 100,000 SUL Favours RR 200,000
Theresa Cannot 100,000 SUL Favours RR 200,000
The Wicked Witch OTW[2] 100,000 SUL Favours Row 150,000
Eric 100,000 SUL Favours Row 150,000
Ronald Ray-Gun 100,000 COS Favours Upper 100,000
The Fall Guy 100,000 COS Favours RR 200,000
Genghis Khaaaaaan 100,000 COS Favours Upper 100,000
John Carter 100,000 COS Favours RR 200,000
[1] Politician McPoliticianface
[2] The Wicked Witch of the West
I announce that I advise the politicians reflected in the table below:
Post Politician
--------- ---------------------------
Host Kim Ping Pong
Planner Genghis Khaaaaaan
Enforcer Ronald Ray-Gun
Organizer Politician McPoliticianface
Creep Loseston Churchvalley
Schmoozer Hillary Rodham Clinton
Decorator Zeno of Citium
Loner Eric
Drunk Lex Luthor
Mystery Xi Kingpin
Wild One The Wicked Witch of the West
Hat Rack Benjamin Surreali
Message 2 (BUS: Scam Part 2):
On 1/20/2019 4:00 PM, D. Margaux wrote:
I have 25 balloons. I hereby spend 24 balloons to win the game.
I point my finger at myself for giving out favours in violation of the
> rules and I throw myself on the mercy of the court.
I CFJ: “D. Margaux won the game by politics in this message.”
***3699 judgement by Trigon:
CFJ STATEMENT
===============
"A Spaceship owned by the Lost and Found Department is in Sector 05".
JUDGEMENT
===========
Events leading up to this CFJ:
1. No spaceship existed in Sector 05 on January 21
2. Telnaior registering on January 29 created a new spaceship
3. Telnaior deregistered the same day
4. Telnaior registering again created another new spaceship
The main point of ambiguity is that when Telnaior deregistered during
Event 3, we don't know where eir spaceship went.
So what /could/ have happened to it?
Possibilities:
1. It was destroyed because it left the class of entities its ownership
was restricted to (Rule 2576 'Ownership' ¶1), or
2. It is owned by the Lost and Found Department because any entity which
would otherwise lack an owner is owned by it (Rule 2576 'Ownership'
¶2).
Since these are in the same rule, which one takes precedence? We need to
look to Rule 2240 ('No Cretens Need Apply') for clarification. This rule
says that if one does not claim precedence over the other, the later
clause wins out. If the "rules to the contrary notwithstanding" in the
second paragraph doesn't already make Possibility 2 win out -- I won't
state either way because I don't know -- the clause supporting it comes
in ¶2 of Rule 2576, after Possibility 1.
I judge TRUE.
--
Trigon
***3699 motion for reconsideration by Murphy:
I intend (with 2 support) to group-file a Motion to Reconsider this
case.
Paragraphs 1 and 2 are never triggered at the same time. Having a
restriction-violating owner isn't the same as having no owner:
* Having a restriction-violating owner triggers paragraph 1 but not
paragraph 2. If the destruction is somehow prevented, then the
asset continues to have its restriction-violating owner.
* Having no owner triggers paragraph 2 but not paragraph 1. If the
transfer to the LFD is somehow prevented, then the asset continues
to have no owner.
********************* CFJ 3700
***3700 Caller's message from G.:
Ok the moot ain't happening let's start again.
CFJ: In the message quoted in evidence, D. Margaux earned at least 1 coin.
I bar twg.
(I suggest Trigon as judge if e's willing!)
ARGUMENTS
The requirement for earning a reward is explicit and literal in R2496: a
player does it by "stating how many assets e earns as a result". Accepting
quang in this context means accepting that you can state how many assets you
earn by NOT stating how many assets you earn. This is more nonsensical than
is usual even for Agora, and if Rule text and words are going to mean
anything, it simply shouldn't work.
EVIDENCE
On 1/29/2019 9:17 AM, D. Margaux wrote:
I quang Arbitor and Registrar
***3700 gratuitous arguement by twg:
Counter-argument: To "quang" an office was earlier defined as being to earn 5
coins for publishing that office's most recent report, and appears now to have
entered common Agoran parlance (totally unintentionally on my part, I assure
you). The set of assets "5 coins" is part of the definition of "quang", and
therefore a statement that one quangs _is_ a statement that one earns 5 coins.
A similar situation would be if somebody said, "I earn a number of coins 1
greater than 4 for publishing the most recent Arbitraryofficor report." E would
not have explicitly used the digit "5" in the string of characters making up
eir statement, but it quite clearly means exactly the same thing as "I earn 5
coins for publishing the most recent Arbitraryofficor report.", and should be
acceptable to R2496.
-twg
***3700 gratuitous arguement by Cuddle Beam:
Counter-argument: It's invalid because they obviously didn't shimmy the
dimmies.
********************* CFJ 3701
***3701 Caller's message from G.:
CFJ: If the definition of quanging a player had not been explicitly
included in the message in evidence, the attempt to transfer currencies
on behalf of Tenhigitsune would have failed.
I bar twg.
ARGUMENTS
Using "quang" without explicitly citing the definition would leave out the
"act on behalf" part. From the judgement of CFJ 3663:
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2018-September/039201.html
"Therefore, for ANY zombie action, the zombie's name must appear explicitly
in the action message, AND a clear indication that it's an act-on-behalf
action (via verbs like "I act on behalf" or "I make" or "I cause" or "I
have" or explicitly indicating that the explicitly-named person is the
agent's zombie). And importantly, "in the message" means NO substitutions
allowed."
EVIDENCE
On 1/29/2019 9:45 AM, Timon Walshe-Grey wrote:
I quang Treasuror, Referee, Astronomor, Clork and Tenhigitsune.
-twg
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Tuesday, January 8, 2019 4:38 PM, Timon Walshe-Grey <m...@timon.red> wrote:
Defining some shorthand:
To "quang" an office is to earn 5 coins for publishing that office's most
recent report.
To "quang" a player is to act on the player's behalf to transfer all eir liquid
assets to oneself.
I quang Treasuror. I quang Referee. I quang Tailor. I quang Tenhigitsune.
-twg
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Saturday, December 29, 2018 1:37 PM, Timon Walshe-Grey m...@timon.red wrote:
I earn 5 coins for publishing the most recent Treasuror report.
I earn 5 coins for publishing the most recent Referee report.
-twg
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Monday, December 10, 2018 12:21 AM, Timon Walshe-Grey m...@timon.red wrote:
I earn 5 coins for publishing the most recent Treasuror report.
I earn 5 coins for publishing the most recent Referee report.
-twg
********************* CFJ 3702
***3702 Caller's message from Cuddle Beam:
I could possibly scrap more people's actions/battle attempts with this but
I can't be assed to dig through emails.
> I spend 3 energy to move to sector (4->5 5->6 6->7).
It's not players who spend energy to move, it's ships. And you can cause
the ship to make a payment to move.
>From Rule 2592/0:
Any player CAN, by announcement, cause a Pilotable Spaceship e
owns to pay 1 Energy to move to a Sector adjacent to its Location.
I CFJ: Gaelan's (only) ship is at Sector 4.
On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 6:59 PM Gaelan Steele <g...@canishe.com> wrote:
> Good catch. I initiate a space battle with twg, to be resolved by D.
> Margaux.
>
> Gaelan
>
> > On Jan 30, 2019, at 9:15 AM, D. Margaux <dmargaux...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > FWIW, I think this is ineffective because it does not specify the
> resolver
> >
> >> On Jan 30, 2019, at 12:14 PM, Gaelan Steele <g...@canishe.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> I spend 3 energy to move to sector (4->5 5->6 6->7).
> >>
> >> I initiate a space battle with twg.
> >>
> >> Contract under rules should twg accept: the parties SHALL, in a timely
> fashion after agreement of this contract, communicate their energy
> expenditure to the battle’s resolver in a private email containing their
> desired expenditure as a positive integer, expressed as one or two Arabic
> numerals.
> >>
> >> Gaelan
>
>
********************* CFJ 3703
***3703 caller's message from twg:
Sorry for the delay.
I CFJ, barring D. Margaux, on the statement: "If and when -N (negative N) coins
are revoked from an entity, where N is a natural number, that entity's coin
balance increases by N."
If the CFJed statement is FALSE, then I resolve Space Battle 0006 as follows:
CuddleBeam spent 20 Energy (private communication), so eir Spaceship's Energy
decreases from 20 to 0.
D. Margaux attempted to spend -10 Energy (private communication), so eir
Spaceship's Energy remains at 4.
Therefore:
D. Margaux's Spaceship's Armour decreases from 10 to 0 (it is Defeated).
CuddleBeam's Spaceship's Armour remains at 10.
CuddleBeam is the winner.
If the CFJed statement is TRUE, then I instead resolve Space Battle 0006 as
follows:
CuddleBeam spent 20 Energy (private communication), so eir Spaceship's Energy
decreases from 20 to 0.
D. Margaux spent -10 Energy (private communication), so eir Spaceship's Energy
increases from 4 to 14.
Therefore:
D. Margaux's Spaceship's Armour decreases from 10 to 0 (it is Defeated).
CuddleBeam's Spaceship's Armour remains at 10.
CuddleBeam is the winner.
I intend to maintain two divergent copies of the Astronomor's report until the
above CFJ is judged.
-twg
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Wednesday, February 6, 2019 9:27 AM, Cuddle Beam <cuddleb...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I have too, just waiting right now.
>
> On Tue, 5 Feb 2019 at 23:38, D. Margaux dmargaux...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > I have communicated my choice to the Astronomor
> >
> > > On Feb 4, 2019, at 4:15 AM, Cuddle Beam cuddleb...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > I initiate a Space Battle between my (only) ship and D.Margaux’s (only)
> > > ship, and I specify the Astronomor as the resolver.
********************* CFJ 3704
***3704 caller's message from D. Margaux:
As intended in my email of January 29, I transfer the spaceships in the lost &
found department to the following players chosen for no particularly good
reason:
The spaceship in Sector 5 to twg.
The spaceship in Sector 14 to Cuddle Beam.
The spaceship in Sector 9 (formerly owned by Tenhigitsune) to Telnaior.
The spaceship in Sector 19 (formerly owned by pokes) to G.
I CFJ: “There were no objections made to D. Margaux’s January 29 intent to
transfer to players other than emself and eir zombie the spaceships in the lost
& found department.”
Caller’s arguements:
Telnaior sent the email quoted below, stating “I object” without specifying
what intent(s) e was objecting to. The quoted email was in direct response to
an email from Cuddlebeam which contained an intent. Additional intents
(including my intent to transfer the ships to players other than myself and my
zombie) were quoted in Cuddlebeam’s email, and were accordingly embedded in
Telnaior’s email with a layer of quotation.
So it is ambiguous whether Telnaior objected only to Cuddle Beam’s intent, or
to all of the intents directly and indirectly quoted in the email, or something
else.
I think the best reading is that Telnaior objected only to CB’s intent, but
it’s not clear what the standards are for interpreting eir objection.
> On Jan 29, 2019, at 12:11 PM, Madeline <j...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
> I object.
>
>> On 2019-01-30 04:10, Cuddle Beam wrote:
>> I intend to transfer all Spaceships in the Lost & Found Department to
>> myself.
>>
>> I initially thought that you couldn't because Spaceships are a fixed asset,
>> but apparently you can because while the Ownership and Asset Actions rules
>> have the same Power, Ownership has a higher ID.
>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 6:00 PM D. Margaux <dmargaux...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I intend without objection to transfer the spaceships in the lost & found
>>> department to players other than myself and my zombie.
>>>
>>> (Honestly just think this would be funny to see what happens, not trying
>>> to gain personal advantage with this one.)
>>>
>>>>> On Jan 29, 2019, at 11:58 AM, Timon Walshe-Grey <m...@timon.red> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 4:42 PM, D. Margaux <dmargaux...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>> I intend without objection to transfer the spaceships in the lost &
>>> found department to a player of my choosing other than myself.
>>>> I object to this first one. Nice try, zombie master. :P
>>>>
>>>>> I intend without objection to destroy the spaceships in the lost &
>>> found department.
>>>> But this seems sensible.
>>>>
>>>> -twg
>
>
