Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:15 PM, comex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The answer, of course, is that equations were not envisioned as being restricted by R101 (iv), and ruling that right ineffective would prevent the equity court from being largely useless, and (thanks to your recent proposal) the entire contracts system from being broken. That's ok, IMO opinion R101(i) means the entire criminal system is broken too now; Take it to equity! removed the criminal penalties for the only action a person was not privileged to do, breaking a contract e explicitly agreed to.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
Þann 12. ágúst 2008 ritaði Geoffrey Spear [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:15 PM, comex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The answer, of course, is that equations were not envisioned as being restricted by R101 (iv), and ruling that right ineffective would prevent the equity court from being largely useless, and (thanks to your recent proposal) the entire contracts system from being broken. That's ok, IMO opinion R101(i) means the entire criminal system is broken too now; Take it to equity! removed the criminal penalties for the only action a person was not privileged to do, breaking a contract e explicitly agreed to. This is immensely interesting. One hand we have R101(i) that (iirc) forbids non-volunteered coercion and on the other we have the judgement system that has the purpose of coercing violating parties to do certain things. (The equity and criminal parts of the judgement system). Why didnt anyone spot this when the judgement system was extended beyond inquiry cases? What happens if R101(i) isnt repealed? Partnerships would be deemed inexistant but where would assets of those partnerships go? -Zarutian Agora nomic watcher.
Re: BUS: Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 8:39 AM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If a party fails to act as specified, e is in violation of this Rule; in such a situation, the judge CAN act on the party's behalf to fulfill said obligations Without 3 Objections, or the party may be subjected to a criminal punishment other than DISCHARGE for violating this Rule, but not both. So, general CANs turn into SHALLs which the judge can enforce without 3 objections. Interesting; something like zombification would certainly gain three objections, so a scam is made much more difficult. And if parties to a contract with an equation they all dislike try to just object to any attempts to enforce it, they can be criminally punished. But you might want to make it clear that if the judge initiates an attempt to follow the 3 objections route, but then is blocked, the second type of enforcement is still available. An appeal concerning any assignment of judgement in an equity case CAN be initiated by any party to the contract in question by announcement. If the judgement is Enforceable when it is appealed, the Appeals Court SHOULD assume that the judgement was fundamentally fair when made, and SHALL restrict its appeals judgement to nullifying terms of the judgement which are no longer applicable due to changed circumstances. Interesting. So you intend that, if circumstances change but someone still objects to striking now unapplicable terms from the judgement, the equation can be appealed for that purpose? What if a disgruntled party already appealed the judgement right after it was assigned, and it was AFFIRMed? Then that option ceases to be available.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Tue, 12 Aug 2008, Zarutian wrote: Þann 12. ágúst 2008 ritaði Geoffrey Spear [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:15 PM, comex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The answer, of course, is that equations were not envisioned as being restricted by R101 (iv), and ruling that right ineffective would prevent the equity court from being largely useless, and (thanks to your recent proposal) the entire contracts system from being broken. That's ok, IMO opinion R101(i) means the entire criminal system is broken too now; Take it to equity! removed the criminal penalties for the only action a person was not privileged to do, breaking a contract e explicitly agreed to. This is immensely interesting. One hand we have R101(i) that (iirc) forbids non-volunteered coercion and on the other we have the judgement system that has the purpose of coercing violating parties to do certain things. (The equity and criminal parts of the judgement system). Why didnt anyone spot this when the judgement system was extended beyond inquiry cases? It was a chain of lesser Rules Changes that caused it to break. In the first version with R101 the way it is, the Rules themselves were a contract, so the act of playing the Rules was agreeing to a Contract. This is why R101 rights allow you to refuse to be a party to a new contract, but don't allow you to refuse changes in a contract that you're already a part of, as long as there's adequate review. Rules Processes were considered prima facie to be protective of rights, for example, the Proposal process is assumed to give reasonable opportunities to review. Therefore, imposing equity settlements was merely changing the Rules contract you were already a part of, and as long as you had a chance to review the changes (e.g. be a defendant in a fair process) it worked fine. Also, Equity cases weren't new contracts, but obligations placed on one by the overarching (Rules) contract. In a couple moves, the Rules as Contract was snipped out, then the Equity Cases were made new contracts instead of simply obligations imposed by the Rules. These (shortsighted IMO) changes were protested by some as overreactions to smaller bugs, but not on the grounds that these individual changes summed into a giant conflict with R101. But that's what happened. What happens if R101(i) isnt repealed? Partnerships would be deemed inexistant but where would assets of those partnerships go? I don't think so. As long as partnerships continue to follow their Rules, there's no proof that they *aren't* legal partnerships. They can continue to do so while simpler fixes are put in place. Assets are trivial, there are rules for what happens when something ceases to be able to hold assets. The real danger is that R101 wasn't created in a vacuum. It actually took several already existing abilities that were in the Rules. In several places in the Rules, it stated that: 1. Unregulated actions were permitted. 2. Persons were always allowed to call CFJs. 3. Fora participation was protected. 4. You couldn't be put in a contract you didn't agree to (IMPORTANT: read mousetrap!) 5. You had to be able to review contract changes. 6. No Double Jeopardy. 7. You could always deregister rather than continue play. These protections have been there a Long Time. The only new thing that R101 added was the strength of the preamble (no law shall abridge...etc.) and calling them rights. Although the previous versions had all these as power-3 limitations that claimed precedence, so they were all pretty much on top already. -Goethe
Re: BUS: Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Tue, 12 Aug 2008, comex wrote: On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 8:39 AM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If a party fails to act as specified, e is in violation of this Rule; in such a situation, the judge CAN act on the party's behalf to fulfill said obligations Without 3 Objections, or the party may be subjected to a criminal punishment other than DISCHARGE for violating this Rule, but not both. So, general CANs turn into SHALLs which the judge can enforce without 3 objections. Interesting; something like zombification would certainly gain three objections, so a scam is made much more difficult. And if parties to a contract with an equation they all dislike try to just object to any attempts to enforce it, they can be criminally punished. But you might want to make it clear that if the judge initiates an attempt to follow the 3 objections route, but then is blocked, the second type of enforcement is still available. Yeah, I was worried about conflicts between the routes, should probably make a much more explicit process here. All this begins to sound like mini-Orders. Not too bad I suppose. An appeal concerning any assignment of judgement in an equity case CAN be initiated by any party to the contract in question by announcement. If the judgement is Enforceable when it is appealed, the Appeals Court SHOULD assume that the judgement was fundamentally fair when made, and SHALL restrict its appeals judgement to nullifying terms of the judgement which are no longer applicable due to changed circumstances. Interesting. So you intend that, if circumstances change but someone still objects to striking now unapplicable terms from the judgement, the equation can be appealed for that purpose? What if a disgruntled party already appealed the judgement right after it was assigned, and it was AFFIRMed? Then that option ceases to be available. Also thought about multiple appeals at the expense of an even longer rule. So good to add that too, thx. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also, Equity cases weren't new contracts, but obligations placed on one by the overarching (Rules) contract. Not quite. Proposal 5194, which created the modern equity court, had the new contract thing from the beginning. I don't remember (and probably wasn't around for) the old equity court, but there was a significant period of time in between when there was no equity court.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Tue, 12 Aug 2008, comex wrote: On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also, Equity cases weren't new contracts, but obligations placed on one by the overarching (Rules) contract. Not quite. Proposal 5194, which created the modern equity court, had the new contract thing from the beginning. I don't remember (and probably wasn't around for) the old equity court, but there was a significant period of time in between when there was no equity court. Nope. During the Repeals, we *purposefully* got rid of criminality and added a general equity concept that worked fine (or at least, was *never* proven broken). That was the period of time when there was no criminal court, and all punishment was through 'Civil CFJS' which were equity in all but name. It even had teeth, through Orders. The only weakness, which could have taken a minor fix, was to apply agreement or Rules in place of agreement for those who did not believe that the Rules were an agreement. The later judicial reforms brought back the what was not wanted by all (criminality, boring, been there done that) and got rid of equity entirely. Then this broken version of equity was added later. Ok, ok, it fixed a few mechanics. Yes, I'm still bitter. Why isn't the following simple and what we were trying to do in the first place, if we substitute agreement or Rules for agreement? If the judge of a Civil CFJ finds that the agreement was entered into with the intention that the agreement be binding, and that the agreement has in fact been broken, then e may do any or all of the following: (i) order the defendant to perform according to the agreement or perform substitute acts that would fairly serve the interests of the agreement; (ii) order the other parties of the agreement to perform such acts as may be necessary to preserve fairness and justice; (iii) order that additional (punitive) penalties or actions be applied to the defendant, if and only if the agreement in question explicitly specifies punitive penalties for the type of breach. [context: other rules apply specific punitive penalties; chokey, fines, etc, for failure of players to perform as Ordered]. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 2:56 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [context: other rules apply specific punitive penalties; chokey, fines, etc, for failure of players to perform as Ordered]. What if a judge issued an unfair Order? Was there an appeals mechanism?
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 12:08, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maybe the best way to ensure partnerships live up to obligations may be to allow equity to work on claims: Proto: Partnership equity, power-2 Amend Rule 2145 (Partnerships) by appending the following paragraph: An Equity Case claiming that a specified partnership has failed to devolve a specific legal obligation onto a subset of its parties CAN be initiated by any Player by announcement. The case shall be considered to be an Equity Case governing the partnership. -- If the original contract envisioned not devolving the obligation well onto the parties (quite likely, in fact), then I don't see what resolution the equity case could reasonably provide beyond finding that it's not a partnership, in which case the case couldn't have been initiated in the first place. A better approach might be to have rule-imposed devolution on contracts which have officially declared themselves to be partnerships (rather than defining partnerships based on their devolution) and provide a means to resolve failed devolution through equity with: (a) standing -- it needs to be something weaker than is a party for the purposes of the case, because the initiator should not be subject to random obligations the contract imposes on its members or random rewards in the equity judgment. It, however, needs to be strong enough that the initiator's actual interest in equity is represented; and (b) definition of equity -- equity for partnerships needs to be defined to explicitly include this rule-imposed requirement on the contract. One approach might be to imagine that such equity cases really concern an imaginary pledge of the like Members of the partnership SHALL ensure that the partnership devolves its obligations onto its parties. [Except we really need a better definition of devolve here and there is a huge issue of party-changing scams.] Doing this really needs a fix for R101 issues with equity cases -- especially since such a pseudo-contract may not reasonably be considered an amendment of the original partnership contract. -woggle
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Charles Reiss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the original contract envisioned not devolving the obligation well onto the parties (quite likely, in fact), then I don't see what resolution the equity case could reasonably provide beyond finding that it's not a partnership, in which case the case couldn't have been initiated in the first place. That sort of finding seems, to me, to be beyond the scope of an equity case. The judgment in an equity case is limited to creating new agreements between the members of a contract, not finding of fact. That said, if a partnership doesn't devolve its obligations, then yes, it is by definition not a partnership, although this determination should, it seems to me, be made by an Inquiry case. This in itself is a bit of a problem, since such a finding means that the contract in question was never a person (assuming the text of the contract didn't change at some point causing the partnership to cease to devolve its obligations), and thus never registered, and could require a bunch of really obnoxious gamestate recalculation. R2145 should probably be rewritten to be a bit more pragmatic, but I'm not sure that redefining equity to include partnerships properly devolving obligations is the best way to do that.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Charles Reiss wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 12:08, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maybe the best way to ensure partnerships live up to obligations may be to allow equity to work on claims: Proto: Partnership equity, power-2 Amend Rule 2145 (Partnerships) by appending the following paragraph: An Equity Case claiming that a specified partnership has failed to devolve a specific legal obligation onto a subset of its parties CAN be initiated by any Player by announcement. The case shall be considered to be an Equity Case governing the partnership. -- If the original contract envisioned not devolving the obligation well onto the parties (quite likely, in fact), then I don't see what resolution the equity case could reasonably provide beyond finding that it's not a partnership, in which case the case couldn't have been initiated in the first place. If a contract, using its legal representatives, claims to be a partnership and registers as a player, then it is prima facie envisioning the devolution of responsibilities. Thus, by the language of the Equity Court, a failure of the devolution (for example, through it not being well- specified in the contract) would indeed be non-envisioned and the legitimate subject of an equity settlement--the only thing that needs to be added is the ability of non-parties to raise the case. The alternative is to claim a contract is not a partnership when it breaks, even though it may have been a partnership for a long-time. Such after-the-fact finding of non-partnership status is worse. A better approach might be to have rule-imposed devolution on contracts which have officially declared themselves to be partnerships (rather than defining partnerships based on their devolution) There's no strong rules-test for partnership, as we can't (ahead of time) test whether an arbitrary contract devolves all responsibilities, that's kind of a legal halting problem. The best we can do (probably) accept a formal claim of partnership-ness as accurate and act to enforce the devolution. (a) standing -- it needs to be something weaker than is a party for the purposes of the case, because the initiator should not be subject to random obligations the contract imposes on its members or random rewards in the equity judgment. It, however, needs to be strong enough that the initiator's actual interest in equity is represented; and All players have an interest to enforcing the obligations of other players. I should limit this to partnerships that are players though. (b) definition of equity -- equity for partnerships needs to be defined to explicitly include this rule-imposed requirement on the contract. One approach might be to imagine that such equity cases really concern an imaginary pledge of the like Members of the partnership SHALL ensure that the partnership devolves its obligations onto its parties. [Except we really need a better definition of devolve here and there is a huge issue of party-changing scams.] This may be in there already, if we take the view that a claim to be a partnership means making a claim to be treated as if such a statement exists that can be defined by equity. Doing this really needs a fix for R101 issues with equity cases -- especially since such a pseudo-contract may not reasonably be considered an amendment of the original partnership contract. Yes, need to see how those appeals turn out first. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Geoffrey Spear wrote: R2145 should probably be rewritten to be a bit more pragmatic, but I'm not sure that redefining equity to include partnerships properly devolving obligations is the best way to do that. The Platonic form (any contract that devolves responsibilities is a natural partnership and thus recognized by Agora) is a holdover from the CFJs that brought partnerships into being at a time that persons were not defined by the rules. It's not needed anymore. How about requiring a formal mechanism for turning arbitrary contracts into partnerships that includes enforcement: 1. A public contract meeting publicity, membership requirements can make itself into a partnership by announcement; if it does so it can register, this is regardless of whether its text explicitly devolves responsibilities or not. 2. If it makes itself a partnership, its members may be subject to certain types of (equity or criminal) claims. 3. Existing partnerships grandfathered in, except they have an opt-out period if they don't like the new requirements. All this may have to wait until the R101 issues are settled. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 12:43, Geoffrey Spear [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Charles Reiss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the original contract envisioned not devolving the obligation well onto the parties (quite likely, in fact), then I don't see what resolution the equity case could reasonably provide beyond finding that it's not a partnership, in which case the case couldn't have been initiated in the first place. That sort of finding seems, to me, to be beyond the scope of an equity case. The judgment in an equity case is limited to creating new agreements between the members of a contract, not finding of fact. That said, if a partnership doesn't devolve its obligations, then yes, it is by definition not a partnership, although this determination should, it seems to me, be made by an Inquiry case. This in itself is a bit of a problem, since such a finding means that the contract in question was never a person (assuming the text of the contract didn't change at some point causing the partnership to cease to devolve its obligations), and thus never registered, and could require a bunch of really obnoxious gamestate recalculation. R2145 should probably be rewritten to be a bit more pragmatic, but I'm not sure that redefining equity to include partnerships properly devolving obligations is the best way to do that. I'm not sure if it is either, but if you go the pragmatic route (which is a good idea given the extreme annoyance of finding something was never a person, which likely distorts the jurisprudence on devolving obligations in the first place), you'll either have an equity requirement or a criminal requirement or something else. The latter is tricky to find culpability for individually (especially given the typical structure of partnership contracts), which likely won't help dissolve abusive shell-company situations at all. The equity requirement seems to give a lot of power to the equity judges, but at least is reasonably likely to find an actual resolution if the right people are parties to the equation. In both cases, we need to ensure that the obligations survive any purported party-changes or termination to the partnership appropriately. (This at least needs to be powerful enough to stop trivial partnership scams like filling a Buy Ticket with your partnership, transferring the VP, and dissolving the partnership.) -woggle
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Charles Reiss wrote: I'm not sure if it is either, but if you go the pragmatic route (which is a good idea given the extreme annoyance of finding something was never a person, which likely distorts the jurisprudence on devolving obligations in the first place), We really don't know whether the *current* system is platonic or pragmatic. We had a couple cases where it was obvious that the text of a contract didn't devolve responsibilities (and therefore wasn't). We haven't had a case where a partnership text generally claimed to devolve responsibility, but then failed to and was brought to court for it. The only instances involving the AFO were subject to out-of-court settlements before a precedent was set. So it's not clear to me (under the current rules) whether the it was never a partnership argument would win over the it claims to be a partnership, so we can impose the following equity settlement. At the moment, a main obstacle in the latter course is just Standing. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (b) definition of equity -- equity for partnerships needs to be defined to explicitly include this rule-imposed requirement on the contract. One approach might be to imagine that such equity cases really concern an imaginary pledge of the like Members of the partnership SHALL ensure that the partnership devolves its obligations onto its parties. [Except we really need a better definition of devolve here and there is a huge issue of party-changing scams.] This may be in there already, if we take the view that a claim to be a partnership means making a claim to be treated as if such a statement exists that can be defined by equity. ... What? I've read this paragraph about 5 times but I can't figure out what it means.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We really don't know whether the *current* system is platonic or pragmatic. We had a couple cases where it was obvious that the text of a contract didn't devolve responsibilities (and therefore wasn't). We haven't had a case where a partnership text generally claimed to devolve responsibility, but then failed to and was brought to court for it. R2145 seems clear and explicit enough to me in defining only those that do devolve obligations as persons. I don't really see a reading of the rule that would lend itself to ruling otherwise, and I don't see any ambiguity in the wording that would allow for a best interests of the game judgment under R217. If we do fix it to be pragmatic, the proposal doing so should probably retroactively grandfather in everything contracts currently believed to be persons have done.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The only instances involving the AFO were subject to out-of-court settlements before a precedent was set. By the way, I think the AFO clearly does devolve its obligations onto its members, but in such a way that, since the passage of Take it to Equity, the members are simply in violation of the contract if they don't cause the AFO to obey the rules of Agora to the maximum possible extent, and it's impossible to punish them for such violations. It seems to me that the wording of the contract is sufficient to make the AFO a person, but not sufficient to actually compel members to do anything.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Geoffrey Spear wrote: R2145 seems clear and explicit enough to me in defining only those that do devolve obligations as persons. I don't really see a reading of the rule that would lend itself to ruling otherwise, and I don't see any ambiguity in the wording that would allow for a best interests of the game judgment under R217. What's not clear about R2145 is what constitutes devolving. Is the devolve pragmatic or platonic? That's not defined! For example, what if the partnership text SAYS that it devolves responsibilities, then a partnership doesn't follow up on something, and no party of that contract brings a case alleging an infringement? That's a case of a partnership's operations being in contradiction with its text, but with no one outside the partnership able to bring a case against it. It would be in keeping with current rules to state devolve is pragmatic, if you claim to be a partnership, then we can enforce that devolution on you. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Geoffrey Spear wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The only instances involving the AFO were subject to out-of-court settlements before a precedent was set. By the way, I think the AFO clearly does devolve its obligations onto its members, but in such a way that, since the passage of Take it to Equity, the members are simply in violation of the contract if they don't cause the AFO to obey the rules of Agora to the maximum possible extent, and it's impossible to punish them for such violations. It seems to me that the wording of the contract is sufficient to make the AFO a person, but not sufficient to actually compel members to do anything. But its not enforceable because only members can bring a case forward that they're in violation, that's the whole thing my proto was trying to add (granting Standing to non-parties in this specific type of situation). Also (side note), I'd argue that if a member can't be compelled to do anything, then there's no devolution of responsibilities. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, comex wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (b) definition of equity -- equity for partnerships needs to be defined to explicitly include this rule-imposed requirement on the contract. One approach might be to imagine that such equity cases really concern an imaginary pledge of the like Members of the partnership SHALL ensure that the partnership devolves its obligations onto its parties. [Except we really need a better definition of devolve here and there is a huge issue of party-changing scams.] This may be in there already, if we take the view that a claim to be a partnership means making a claim to be treated as if such a statement exists that can be defined by equity. ... What? I've read this paragraph about 5 times but I can't figure out what it means. If a contract posts a formal message (e.g. a message is posted on its behalf according to its mechanisms) claiming to be a partnership and taking on responsibilities, than it is envisioning responsibilities in the equity sense, whether or not its text specifies a way to devolve them. You are what you do, not what you say you are. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
Wooble wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The only instances involving the AFO were subject to out-of-court settlements before a precedent was set. By the way, I think the AFO clearly does devolve its obligations onto its members, but in such a way that, since the passage of Take it to Equity, the members are simply in violation of the contract if they don't cause the AFO to obey the rules of Agora to the maximum possible extent, and it's impossible to punish them for such violations. It seems to me that the wording of the contract is sufficient to make the AFO a person, but not sufficient to actually compel members to do anything. Note that this only became a problem with Take it to equity! was adopted; before that, you could go straight to criminal prosecution of the members for failing to keep the AFO obedient.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 4:30 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But its not enforceable because only members can bring a case forward that they're in violation, that's the whole thing my proto was trying to add (granting Standing to non-parties in this specific type of situation). Also (side note), I'd argue that if a member can't be compelled to do anything, then there's no devolution of responsibilities. A criminal case might have been able to punish people (for example, by deregistering them) for violating their obligations before Take it to Equity!, and I suppose some of those punishments might have imposed obligations on them to repent. But if they refuse to follow them, what are you left with? A criminal case. There is no real way to compel/force anyone to do anything, without their having agreed to a contract to that effect, and there never has been. So I'd say that devolution of responsibilities exists if there is an obligation, regardless of whether arbitrary punishments can be levied on members for failure to comply with things.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
comex wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (b) definition of equity -- equity for partnerships needs to be defined to explicitly include this rule-imposed requirement on the contract. One approach might be to imagine that such equity cases really concern an imaginary pledge of the like Members of the partnership SHALL ensure that the partnership devolves its obligations onto its parties. [Except we really need a better definition of devolve here and there is a huge issue of party-changing scams.] This may be in there already, if we take the view that a claim to be a partnership means making a claim to be treated as if such a statement exists that can be defined by equity. ... What? I've read this paragraph about 5 times but I can't figure out what it means. I'm not sure which paragraph you mean. In any case, I agree with Goethe's first sentence, but disagree with the rest; this is a legitimate loophole and should be patched by legislation, not by hand-waving implicit pledges into existence.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Ed Murphy wrote: Note that this only became a problem with Take it to equity! was adopted; before that, you could go straight to criminal prosecution of the members for failing to keep the AFO obedient. I'm not so sure. Take it to equity! prevents violations from being against R1742. However, it could still be a prosecutable criminal offense for members to fail in their devolved responsibilities (e.g. a violation against R2145 instead, and a higher-power rule at that). That's an entirely different avenue I hadn't thought about. This would be a desired feature: limiting criminal claims w.r.t to general contracts, but holding partnership responsibilities to a higher standard. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 5:01 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Ed Murphy wrote: Note that this only became a problem with Take it to equity! was adopted; before that, you could go straight to criminal prosecution of the members for failing to keep the AFO obedient. I'm not so sure. Take it to equity! prevents violations from being against R1742. However, it could still be a prosecutable criminal offense for members to fail in their devolved responsibilities (e.g. a violation against R2145 instead, and a higher-power rule at that). That's an entirely different avenue I hadn't thought about. Sounds good, except that Rule 2145 looks pretty Platonic to me. However, amending it to do what you suggest would be interesting.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, comex wrote: There is no real way to compel/force anyone to do anything, without their having agreed to a contract to that effect, and there never has been. Not true. At least, depending on how the R101 case turns out, not necessarily true. If equity settlements can be imposed in general, we've also found that contracts can allow one person to act on behalf of another. An equity case can include: If Party A fails to act as this equity settlement states, the judge can act on Party A's behalf to do so. I've been planning to use this method for future enforcement, I don't know if anyone else has thought of it but it seems pretty straightforward. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, comex wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 5:01 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, Ed Murphy wrote: Note that this only became a problem with Take it to equity! was adopted; before that, you could go straight to criminal prosecution of the members for failing to keep the AFO obedient. I'm not so sure. Take it to equity! prevents violations from being against R1742. However, it could still be a prosecutable criminal offense for members to fail in their devolved responsibilities (e.g. a violation against R2145 instead, and a higher-power rule at that). That's an entirely different avenue I hadn't thought about. Sounds good, except that Rule 2145 looks pretty Platonic to me. However, amending it to do what you suggest would be interesting. How can something be platonic when the proof is in the execution? It's what, pragmatically platonic? platonically pragmatic? Pragtonic? Platmatic? -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 5:07 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, comex wrote: There is no real way to compel/force anyone to do anything, without their having agreed to a contract to that effect, and there never has been. Not true. At least, depending on how the R101 case turns out, not necessarily true. If equity settlements can be imposed in general, we've also found that contracts can allow one person to act on behalf of another. An equity case can include: If Party A fails to act as this equity settlement states, the judge can act on Party A's behalf to do so. I've been planning to use this method for future enforcement, I don't know if anyone else has thought of it but it seems pretty straightforward. Well, yeah, I discounted that, because I have yet to see a persuasive argument to the effect that I couldn't just refuse such an equation.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 6:51 PM, comex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, yeah, I discounted that, because I have yet to see a persuasive argument to the effect that I couldn't just refuse such an equation. Well, we could just follow the US Supreme Court and determine that the existence of a fundamental individual right doesn't mean that a court can't take away that right just by saying they can.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, comex wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 5:07 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, comex wrote: There is no real way to compel/force anyone to do anything, without their having agreed to a contract to that effect, and there never has been. Not true. At least, depending on how the R101 case turns out, not necessarily true. If equity settlements can be imposed in general, we've also found that contracts can allow one person to act on behalf of another. An equity case can include: If Party A fails to act as this equity settlement states, the judge can act on Party A's behalf to do so. I've been planning to use this method for future enforcement, I don't know if anyone else has thought of it but it seems pretty straightforward. Well, yeah, I discounted that, because I have yet to see a persuasive argument to the effect that I couldn't just refuse such an equation. Well, yeah, that's the subject of your CFJ, but there's plenty of opinion at the moment that you can't. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 10:23 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, yeah, I discounted that, because I have yet to see a persuasive argument to the effect that I couldn't just refuse such an equation. Well, yeah, that's the subject of your CFJ, but there's plenty of opinion at the moment that you can't. -Goethe And yet I have yet to see a persuasive argument based on the Rules to back up that opinion.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, 11 Aug 2008, comex wrote: On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 10:23 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, yeah, I discounted that, because I have yet to see a persuasive argument to the effect that I couldn't just refuse such an equation. Well, yeah, that's the subject of your CFJ, but there's plenty of opinion at the moment that you can't. -Goethe And yet I have yet to see a persuasive argument based on the Rules to back up that opinion. It doesn't matter whether you see one at this point.
Re: DIS: Proto: partnership enforcement
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 10:46 PM, Kerim Aydin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And yet I have yet to see a persuasive argument based on the Rules to back up that opinion. It doesn't matter whether you see one at this point. Heh. Well, look at your arguments for appeal. The first half is irrelevant because it deals with the wrong right. But this is the interesting part: R101(iv) refers to becoming party to the initial agreement, not the equity result; agreeing to become party to the initial agreement as binding under these Rules means explicitly agreeing to a process in the Rules for enforcing the binding, and that is currently the equity process. Otherwise the term binding has no meaning. With respect to everything after the semicolon, as CFJ 2101 was initiated BEFORE Take it to Equity!, (at the time of the CFJ) there is a process in the Rules for enforcing the binding: criminal cases. So we are left with: R101(iv) refers to becoming party to the initial agreement, not the equity result. Now, it seems pretty clear to me that equations are new binding agreements-- do you disagree? So, why should an equation be exempted from the right? R101 (iv) does not limit itself to any specific type of binding agreement. The answer, of course, is that equations were not envisioned as being restricted by R101 (iv), and ruling that right ineffective would prevent the equity court from being largely useless, and (thanks to your recent proposal) the entire contracts system from being broken. It also makes sense: why should Rule 101 protect me against an agreement imposed by the Rules themselves? Now, personally, I prefer a broken equity court. But I also agree that R101 (iv) shouldn't be affecting the case, and if it turns out to be breaking the equity court, we should either explicitly legislate the brokenness or work around it. But -- as far as I can see -- there is nothing in the Rules that would indicate that the right is ineffective. The ambiguity is very small. So it's a clash of two Agoran traditions: the tradition of interpreting the Rules literally and applauding loopholes and unintended side effects of Rules, and the tradition of interpreting the Rules in the best interests of Agora to let the game continue-- see the Black Repeals, or really the Agoran reaction to many scams... But this is not a scam. Although Take it to Equity! may have created some urgency in the matter, I think we have the time to afford ruling the case based solely on the merits, and-- if it is what the majority of Agorans want-- to fix the loophole, or R101. Proto-proposal: Repeal Rule 101.
