status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#4027 (This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 4027 =============================== This proposal introduces "any ambiguity" into all rule changes. ========================================================================== Caller: 4st Judge: Murphy Judgement: FALSE ========================================================================== History: Called by 4st: 08 May 2023 14:39:14 Assigned to Murphy: 08 May 2023 16:55:33 Judged FALSE by Murphy: 14 May 2023 23:15:00 ========================================================================== Caller's note: Er typo [in the CFJ statement]: "This proposal introduces" should be "This contract introduces" Caller's Evidence: I create and join the following contract (new! clearly saying what proposal can do!): { Players can leave this contract at any time. When a player makes a rule change via proposal, that proposal CAN directly apply that rule change to private information in this contract, even if the author is not party to this contract. This contract has private information that is a copy of the Agoran ruleset. } Caller's Arguments: Arguments FOR: "change/alter/modify/update/amend/fix a rule/the power/the title to read", "delete/destroy/shred/eliminate a rule", and "create/spawn/induce a rule" are presumed to introduce ambiguity even though all seem pretty clear that they want to make a rule/power/title be something, repeal a rule, or enact a rule. Repeal a portion of a rule seems to introduce a similar ambiguity. THUS, this contract would introduce a global ambiguity: did the author mean to do the rule change to the contract... or the rule? (See Rule 105 "Any ambiguity in the specification of a rule change causes that change to be void and without effect." Arguments AGAINST: It should be implied that things in Agora are reasonable unless otherwise stated. EG Amend the power of something should be a valid, unambiguous rule change, because it is reasonable to interpret it that way. (Another argument against that may make this matter unfortunately trivial: R217 means the rules take precedence over contracts, although the rules are silent on whether this introduces ambiguity, however, the fact that I have to ask implies that it is so?) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judge Murphy's Arguments: This contract doesn't introduce ambiguity of any sort. First, just because a proposal making a rule change CAN apply it to the contract's copy of the rules, doesn't mean that it does. It only does if the proposal says it does. Second, just because a proposal making a rule change does apply it to the contract's copy of the rules, doesn't mean that it applies it /only/ to the contract's copy of the rules. It only does if the proposal says it does. And in that case, it's unambiguously not a rule change. Furthermore, even if a more carefully worded contract made it ambiguous whether a proposal making a rule change also affected something defined by the contract, that wouldn't be an ambiguity in the rule change itself, but an ambiguity in a side effect of that rule change (or of the proposal itself). I judge FALSE. ==========================================================================