OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3541 Judged DISMISS by grok

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3541
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3541  ==


   A nickle's worth of shinies is exactly 5 shinies.




Caller:   o

Judge:grok 
Judgement:DISMISS



History:

Called by o:  17 Jul 2017  
Assigned to grok: 18 Jul 2017 
Judged DISMISS by grok:   20 Jul 2017



Caller's Evidence:

On Jul 16, 2017, at 6:58 PM, Quazie  wrote:
>
> I pay nichdel a nickel's worth of shinies for taking over as
> Assessor.



Judge grok's Arguments:

Well this one is actually pretty easy on face. Since o misspelled
"nickel" in the statement, I could easily dismiss for a malformed
question if I really wanted to, or if I was lazy.

But I think I'll be a good Judge and answer the CFJ as if the second
word spelled in the question was "nickel" anyways.

---

I

---

I intend to view this CFJ in context, rather than as the statement
alone. While it would be completely reasonable to view the statement
in a vacuum, I believe that including the context of the initial
announcement adds more texture and depth to the decision without
changing its outcome.

We start with the initial action. Quazie attempts to pay shinies to
nichdel with the following announcement: "I pay nichdel a nickel's
worth of shinies for taking over as Assessor." There are clearly a few
things that are true here. First, Quazie is clearly attempting to pay
number of shinies. Second, nichdel is the intended recipient of those
shinies. Third, and most important, Quazie was attempting to pay a
number of shinies comparable to the value of another thing. This will
be important to the implications of the case.

The opinion of the judge comes to three questions: Is the value of a
nickel determinable, is the value of a shiny determinable in the unit
"nickels," and the CFJ question, is a nickel's worth of shinies equal
to five shinies?

---

II

---

Determining the value of a nickel at all is a prior question to
determining if that value is five. If the value is completely
indeterminible , the action necessarily fails.

There is some ambiguity of what, exactly, a nickel is. Common
knowledge tells us it is a metal, but one would rarely refer to an
amount of nickel as "a nickel" without qualification--a lump of
nickel, or a vein, or an atom. Nickel is ultimately an adjective in
this sense--using it as a noun alone is not common in the language and
grammar used in Quazie's initial statement.

So clearly we are looking at "a nickel," used as a noun. There are
alternative uses, other than currency, but most are not in common
lexicons. Kelly Nickels is "a nickel," in a sense, but few know the
last name of the bassist of the L.A. guns. Similarly, a defensive line
with five defensive backs in American and Canadian football could
certainly be called "a nickel," but recent CFJs about cultural and
linguistic diversity lead me to believe that would be a difficult bar
to pass.

By far, the most common use of "a nickel" in noun form is to refer to
coined moneys. Of these, there is again variation. Wooden nickels and
three-cent pieces hold the phrase "a nickel," but none are so
widespread as the American and Canadian nickel. These coins are both,
in fact, worth five cents. Their fiat value is equal to five units,
with one cent as the base unit. I believe, to this point, that there
is no ambiguity major enough to fail the test of common language.

We are presented with a different problem after determining the value
of a nickel. While a nickel is equal to five cents, the cent is a
subdivision of the dollar. Five cents is one-twentieth of one dollar.
While it is out of the realm of common knowledge, the banking industry
and financial sectors in both countries that use the nickel also deal
in fractional amounts of the penny, although I find this argument less
compelling.

I get put in a hard place between determining if a nickel is equal to
five units. In one way, it is equal to five pennies. In another, it is
equal to one-twentieth of a dollar, and pennies are equal to
one-hundredth of a dollar. I personally am compelled that a nickel is
determinable as worth five pennies, and continue to the next test of
truth in this assumption.

---

III

---

Clearly the most difficult test of truth for this CFJ is determining
the value of a shiny. There is, as far as I am aware, no precedent for
an exchange rate between shinies and any other currency at this time,
whether it be a crypto-currency or a fiat currency recognized by a
government. 

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3538 Judged TRUE by omd

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3538
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3538  ==

   In the message to agora discussion stating "haha suck it",
   V.J. Rada broke a Pledge.



Caller:   V.J. Rada   
Barred:   CuddleBeam

Judge:omd
Judgement:TRUE



History:

Called by V.J. Rada:  05 Jul 2017
Assigned to omd:  05 Jul 2017 
Judged TRUE by omd:   07 Jul 2017



Caller's Arguments:

1. Pledge and promise are synonyms in ordinary meaning.
  Does that mean a promise counts as per the rules?
2. Can a post to A-D have the effect of breaking a pledge,
even if it doesn't have other game effects?
3. Pledges to refrain from an action have to be for a limited
time. Does that include the practically unlimited period of the
sun's existence?



Caller's Evidence:

On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 10:26 AM, V.J Rada  wrote 
to Agora-Business:
> I promise not to post in agora discussion within the period of
> the sun's existence

On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 10:27 AM, V.J Rada  wrote
to Agora-Discussion:
> haha suck it



Gratuituos Arguments by ais523:

"Pledge" and "Promise" have both had formal definitions in Agora in
the past (which made it clear that they were two different things),
but both of these definitions have since been repealed. Have these
influenced game custom? Or does the fact that the definitions were
repealed mean that any precedents from the time no longer apply?

Under the old definition of "pledge", players have been punished in
the past for actions unconnected with any Agoran fora. For example, a
player pledged to ascend a game of NetHack on a public NetHack server
(unrelated to the Agoran mailing lists) and failed to do so, leading
to a CFJ ruling that a rule was violated.

The first paragraph of rule 478 contains "it is hereby resolved that
no Player shall be prohibited from participating in the Fora". This
has in the past been taken to mean that rules penalising people for
communicating via the Fora (as opposed to communicating something in
particular via the Fora) have no effect. Does that apply in this
case?

Note that IIRC there's more than one discussion forum (##nomic on
irc.freenode.net is the other one, but it's an IRC channel not a
mailing list). If it does apply, did the /making/ of the pledge
violate rule 478?



Judge omd's Arguments:

On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 6:25 PM, Alex Smith  
wrote:
> > > 1. Pledge and promise are synonyms in ordinary meaning.
> > > Does that mean a promise counts as per the rules?

Previously, Rule 2450 (Pledges) stated in its entirety:

   Breaking a publicly-made pledge is a cardable offense.

In this version, it's pretty clear that the rule doesn't define a
special game object called a Pledge or anything; rather, it refers to
ordinary-language pledges, and identifies a subset of them (those that
were publicly made, where "public" presumably refers to the
definitions in Rule 478) as relevant to the game.

11 days ago, it was amended by "Betterer Pledges" to add the following
(the online ruleset still hasn't been updated to reflect this):

 If a publicly-made pledge says that the creator of a pledge will do
 something, without providing a time limit, then e SHALL in a timely manner
 in order to not break said pledge.

 A player CANNOT make any pledge that would create new obligations for
 any other person or office, without the other party's explicit consent.

The first of those two paragraphs doesn't make a difference, but the
latter arguably does: by stating circumstances under which a player
CAN make a pledge, the rule is effectively creating its own definition
of "pledge".  Nevertheless, it is still vague enough about what
constitutes a pledge that this new definition should be understood as
a refinement or modification of the ordinary-language definition, not
a replacement.

Thus, there is no specific wording required to make a pledge; arguably
even a simple future-tense statement like "I will do X" might count,
though I'm not ruling on that here.  In this case, "I pledge" and "I
promise" mean basically the same thing in ordinary language, and V.J.
Rada's message was sent to a public forum, so e indeed made a
"publicly-made pledge".

Incidentally, the CFJ statement:

> > I CFJ on "In 

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3543 Judged FALSE by Aris

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3543
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3543  ==

   No rule other than rule 2166 can be a backing document.



Caller:   CuddleBeam

Judge:Aris
Judgement:FALSE



History:

Called by CuddleBeam: 09 Jul 2017
Assigned to Aris: 24 Jul 2017 
Judged FALSE by Aris: 31 Jul 2017



Caller's Arguments:

- CFJ 3532 ("Assets with multiple backing documents can't exist")
- R2166 states "An asset is an entity defined as such by a rule", however,
this is in itself a definition of what an asset is - it is an entity
defined as such by a rule. So R2166 is a backing document.
- Given that "Assets with multiple backing docs can't exist", and R2166
itself is a backing document (applicable to *all* assets), no other backing
document can exist in the ruleset.



Judge Aris's Arguments:

This case is similar to CFJ 3532. The assets rule does not create or 
attempt to create any specific class of assets. Although it is necessary
for an asset defined by another rule to be an asset, the sine qua non
(without which not) standard was rejected in CFJ 3532 as being against
both the intent and the clear textual meaning of the rule. FALSE.

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3532 Judged TRUE by Aris

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3532
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3532  ==

   Shinies are assets.



Caller:   omd

Judge:Aris 
Judgement:TRUE



History:

Called by omd:28 Jun 2017 
Assigned to Aris: 29 Jun 2017
Judged TRUE by Aris:  08 Jul 2017  
Motion to Reconsider filed:   10 Jul 2017
Judged TRUE by Aris:  23 Jul 2017



Caller's Arguments:

The recently resurrected rule 2166 says:

   An asset is an entity defined as such by a rule (hereafter its
   backing document), and existing solely because its backing
   document defines its existence.

The latest version of Rule 2483 (Economics) purports to define shinies
as assets, but does it satisfy the second condition?  The meaning of
"because" here is somewhat ambiguous, but I suggest a useful test is
whether an entity would cease to exist if, hypothetically, its backing
document (rule) were repealed.  In this case, shinies are primarily
defined by Rule 2483, but are also explicitly mentioned in Rule 2491
(Estate Auctions) and Rule 2484 (Payday).  For example:

   At the start of each month, if Agora's Balance is not 0 or less,
   Agora SHALL pay each player 10 shinies.

(There are also references to "Balance" in Rules 2485 and 2487.)

If Rule 2483 were repealed, it seems likely that the mentions of
"shinies" (perhaps "Balance" as well) in those rules would still be
interpreted as referring to game-defined objects, given the lack of
any obvious alternative referent.  That would probably be sufficient
to establish shinies as a part of the gamestate, and (given the lack
of any intermediate period in which they're not defined) preserve the
existence of shinies existing prior to the repeal.  Thus shinies fail
the test: they wouldn't cease to exist if Rule 2483 were repealed.
Does that mean they don't exist "solely because" of Rule 2483, and
hence are not assets?

See also: CFJs 1922 and 2309, which addressed that clause but wrt
assets defined by contracts, not rules.



Judge Aris's Arguments:

This call for judgment inquires whether the "existing solely" clause
(hereinafter The Clause) of Rule 2166, which defines assets, prevents assets
referenced by multiple rules from existing. I turn first to the relevant text
of the rule, which is as follows:

   An asset is an entity defined as such by a rule (hereafter its backing
   document), and existing solely because its backing document defines its
   existence.

Clearly The Clause prevents, say, the sun from being defined as an asset. This
is good, because if the sun could be an asset the rules might make it
destructible, and then we'd be forced to accept, for game purposes, that there
was no sun. It would be even more problematic if we accepted persons, and
therefore players, as assets. Obviously the rules are free to make such
definitions anyway (although we might argue over whether they would have any
effect, considering the interests of the game). However, in the past
we've allowed contracts to define assets, explaining the necessity of such
restrictions.

The Clause prevents another class of situations as well. It prevents
two different rules from defining the same asset. In older forms, it has done
the same for a rule and a contract (CFJs 1922-1923). The question raised here is
whether even referencing an asset would create such a situation. This raises
interesting questions about the way we interpret the rules. It has long been
understood that even if a term used in the rules is undefined, we are obliged to
try our best to figure out what it means. Thus, even without the rule defining
shinies, we would "interpret them into existence". Without shinies, pending
would be impossible, and we would be unable to pay out salaries, among other
problems. So, it is apparent that we might consider shinies existent even
without the intervention of their defining rule, arguably triggering The Clause.

The historical interpretation of The Clause, however, does not support this
argument. There are no precedents that clearly apply to this situation, although
in CFJ 3381 the Honorable Judge ais523 appears to assume in passing that such
things are possible. But our current situation is not unprecedented, there are
merely no applicable _judicial_ precedents. Rule 2166 is not a new rule. It was,
in fact, a rather aged rule at time it was repealed, and it only seems new to
us because of its recent reenactment. One example of a similar situation is the
point, which 

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3533 Judged TRUE by omd

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3533
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3533  ==

   V.J. Rada initiated three elections on 27 June.



Caller:   V.J. Rada

Judge:omd
Judgement:TRUE



History:

Called by V.J. Rada:  30 Jun 2017
Assigned to omd:  30 Jun 2017  
Judged TRUE by omd:   02 Jul 2017



Judge omd's Arguments:

On 27 June, e indeed attempted to do so:
> Because I am rather bored, I initiate elections for Prime Minister, 
> Herald and Report or by announcement.

The case turns on this clause of Rule 2154, describing a condition
under which elections can be initiated:

   1. by announcement, if e is the ADoP, if the office has been
  deputised for within the past two weeks, or if no election
  has been initiated for the office either since the last time
  a player won the game or within the past 90 days;

In short, "if A, if B, or if C": there was debate over whether this
means "if A, [and] (if B or if C)", or just "if A, or if B, or if C".

Grammatically, the latter seems more plausible, as "A, B,
[conjunction] C" is a standard way to write lists in English: the
conjunction is usually "and" but "or" works too.  Two random examples
from different sources:

   "Use commas to separate three or more words, phrases, or clauses
   in a series."

   "input source: The device, file, block, or other entity that
   supplies characters to refill the input buffer."

We don't usually write "A or B or C".  When all the clauses start with
"if", we do sometimes write "if A, or if B, or if C", but "if A, if B,
or if C" is still grammatical and common.  Indeed, it can arguably be
seen as more grammatically correct.  Examples:

   "An ambiguous condition exists if fileid is invalid, if there is
   an I/O exception reading fileid, or if an I/O exception occurs
   while closing fileid."

   "CG_INVALID_PARAMETER_ERROR is generated if name is NULL or not
   a valid identifier, if type is not a simple scalar, vector, or
   matrix-type, or if nelements is not a positive number."

Given that this construction is not only grammatically correct, but
arguably the 'most correct' way to express such a list, it would only
be reasonable to pick the alternate interpretation if the usual R217
factors strongly favored it, e.g. if the rule didn't make sense
otherwise.  In this case, the rule basically makes sense either way,
although under the "A and (B or C)" interpretation, where only the
ADoP can take advantage of that clause, the language seems somewhat
awkward to me.  Usually we would prefer to say "The ADoP CAN initiate"
rather than "A player CAN initiate ... if e is the ADoP".  That
applies to both interpretations, but under the "A and (B or C)"
interpretations, we could write something like

   An election generally CAN be initiated only for an elected
   office for which no election is already in progress.

   The ADoP CAN initiate an election for a specified office by
   announcement, if the office [...]

   Any player CAN initiate an election for a specified office by
   announcement.

...whereas under the "A or B or C" interpretation, splitting each of
the enabling conditions (ADoP, deputised, no election recently, with 4
support) into its own clause would result in 4 different paragraphs
repeating "initiate an election for a specified office", which feels
considerably more verbose than repeating it just twice.

Anyway, that doesn't really matter, because there's a different R217
factor strongly in favor of "A or B or C": game custom, in the form of
past versions of Rule 2154, along with what passes for legislative
history.  The language in question dates back to 2009, when Proposal
6411 inserted this text:

  A player CAN initiate an election for a specified elected office
  for which no election is already in progress

a) by announcement, if e is the IADoP, or the office is vacant,
   or no election has been initiated for the office within 90
   days before the announcement;

b) with 4 Supporters, otherwise.

which unambiguously specifies "A or B or C".  Later the rule was
amended to remove the "vacant" option, so it was down to just "A or
C"; then in 2014, Proposal 7658 was adopted:

--
ID: 7658
Title: Election Danger
Author: scshunt
Adoption Index: 2

Amend Rule 2154 (Election Procedure) by replacing
   a) by announcement, if e is the IADoP, or no election has been
  initiated for the office within 90 days before 

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3540 Judged TRUE by Publius Scribonius Scholasticus

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3540
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3540  ==

   The message quoted in Evidence has created a publicly-made pledge.



Caller:   G.

Judge:Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
Judgement:TRUE



History:

Called by G.:18 Jul 2017
Assigned to Publius Scribonius Scholasticus: 18 Jul 2017   
Judged TRUE by Publius Scribonius Scholasticus:  20 Jul 2017



Caller's Arguments:

I'm wondering the extent to which the current pledge mechanism can be
used to form private but enforceable contracts.  Do the full details of
the pledge need to be known for it to be "public"?  Or is it enough to
make a public announcement that a pledge has been made?

Obviously, no punishment can be applied unless the text becomes known to
the Referee or other carding authority.  It would be great if the judge
could explore different possibilities; e.g. what happens if the plaintext
becomes known to the Referee?  What if the plaintext is made public after
the fact, by someone alleging the pledge has been broken?

I'm not a player, but if there's a difference between the player and non-
player case, hopefully the judge can also opine on the differences and say
what would happen if the above pledge were made by a player.  (Obviously
non-players can't be punished as the rule is written, but there's nothing
to say they can't make pledges).



Caller's Evidence:

On Tue, 2017-07-18 at 12:05 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote:
>
> I hereby pledge to perform as specified in a document 82 characters in
> length with the following SHA-1 hash:
>   0ed8c48c11070dfa911ff4b6e465a999cc7cc4a1



Judge Publius Scribonius Scholasticus's Arguments:

I find CFJ 3540 to be TRUE because the message clearly communicates what
is being pledged to a public forum. However, I find that this pledge is
ineffective and can not be broken because there is no way to determine
which document with the specified hash and character constraint e is
referencing. If e were to redo this pledge with reference to a specific
document identified more specifically in an unambiguous way or to every
document fulfilling such a description, it would be an effective pledge.
As to the question of privately communicated pledges raised in
discussion, I find that those would also be effective if there were some
means by which it could be legally verified that the message is that
which the pledge was made on. This could be done via a combination of
hashing functions and private communication or via some of smart
contracts, blockchains, or document depositories.

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3524 Judged FALSE by Publius Scribonius Scholasticus

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3524
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3524  ==

Murphy has a White Ribbon.



Caller:   ais523

Judge:Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
Judgement:FALSE



History:

Called by ais523: 09 Jun 2017
Assigned to Publius Scribonius Scholasticus:  09 Jun 2017
Judged FALSE by Publius Scribonius Scholasticus:  20 Jun 2017



Caller's Arguments:

Does "A player qualifies for a White Ribbon if e has never
previously owned a White Ribbon (including under previous rulesets)."
count White Ribbons from rulesets that predate the adoption of rule
2438? If so, this is FALSE; if not, this is TRUE.



Caller's Evidence:

On Fri, 2017-06-09 at 18:08 +0100, Alex Smith wrote:
> On Thu, 2017-06-08 at 09:01 -0700, Edward Murphy wrote:
> > I award myself a White Ribbon. (According to the latest Tailor's
> > report, I haven't had one since Rule 2438 was adopted.)
> 
> I'm not convinced this works. According to old archives, you awarded
> yourself a White Ribbon on 24 November 2009, as a consequence of
> mentoring omd (one of the ways to get White Ribbons back then), and
> rule 2438 says "including under previous rulesets". (At least, when
> writing the rule, I intended it to be able to look at the old Ribbons
> system. Maybe it doesn't, though?)



Judge's Arguments:

I find CFJ 3524 FALSE, as the ruleset clearly and undebatebly specifies
in plain terms that any previous holding of a White Ribbon under any
ruleset precludes the action that Murphy attempted to take to become the
holder of a White Ribbon.

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3528 Judged IRRELEVANT by ais523

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3528
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3528  ==

   PSS has enjoyed Quazie's typos at all times within the last seven
   days.



Caller:   o  
Barred:   Publius Scribonius Scholasticus

Judge:ais523
Judgement:IRRELEVANT



History:

Called by o:  20 Jun 2017
Assigned to ais523:   21 Jun 2017
Judged IRRELEVANT by ais523:  27 Jun 2017



Caller's Arguments:

PSS pledged as follows:

I pledge to like Quazie's typos for the next week.

As PSS has not posted any complaints, I infer that either no typos
have occurred, or that PSS has enjoyed each typo at least
sufficiently not to raise a complaint.

I further invite PSS to testify to the matter.



Judge ais523's Arguments:

I suspect the pledge in question is broken only by actions that are
actually observable. Tying Agora's gamestate to a player's mental state
is only asking for trouble.

As such, I judge this CFJ IRRELEVANT. Failure to enjoy a typo would not
actually violate the pledge until it had some effect that could be
perceived via some means by Agorans as a whole. I don't believe such an
observable effect has happened.

(Note that pledge violation is defined as "cardable", which very much
implies to me that it's up to the Referee that decides whether to award
the card, and the rule simply gives guidelines for when that happens.
This is different for rules violations as a whole, which tend to use
words like SHALL.)

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3525 Judged FALSE by Murphy

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3525
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3525  ==

   Alexis does not have a White Ribbon, but ais523 does have a White
   Ribbon.



Caller:   ais523

Judge:Murphy
Judgement:FALSE



History:

Called by ais523: 10 Jun 2017
Assigned to Murphy:   10 Jun 2017
Judged FALSE by Murphy:   23 Jun 2017



Caller's Arguments:

In October 2016, neither ais523 nor Alexis had a White
Ribbon, but were both incorrectly shown as having such on the
Tailor's Report. It's already been ruled that Alexis' Ribbon
Ownership failed to ratify, as the report listing it was internally
inconsistent (listing Alexis twice under different nicknames, and
with a different holding for each name).

After that, there was no further Tailor's Report until May 2017. This
report listed Alexis' White Ribbon holdings as disputed, but had no
such mark for ais523 (because I remembered the controversy but forgot
the details; it had been several months earlier). This CFJ is
basically about what portion of a switch report (if any) counts as
self-ratifying if part of it is marked as disputed, or is internally
inconsistent.

Working out the current Ribbon holdings requires answering these
questions:

Did the May have a self-ratifying section at all?

If so, did that section include ais523's Ribbon Ownership but not
Alexis's Ribbon Ownership, or did it include both? Did it
additionally contain the statement of dispute?

If it included both, what happened when it self-ratified?

If the May report failed to change ais523's Ribbon Ownership upon
self-ratification, did the October report self-ratify ais523's Ribbon
Ownership?



Caller's Evidence:

Tailor's Report, October (excerpt):
{{{
ROGCBMUVIPLWKY
ais523  OG  MUV P WKY
AlexisC   W Y
scshuntRO CBMU  P  KY
}}}
[Note: "Alexis" and "scshunt" are two different nicknames for the
same
person.]

Tailor's Report, May (excerpt):
{{{
ROGCBMUVIPLWKAT
ais523  OGC MUV P WKA
Alexis RO CBMUV P WKA  (disputed, see CFJs 3463/3464)
}}}

Rule 2162/8 (excerpt):
{{{
   3. Optionally, exactly one office whose holder tracks instances
  of that switch.  That officer's (weekly, if not specified
  otherwise) report includes the value of each instance of that
  switch whose value is not its default value; a public
  document purporting to be this portion of that officer's
  report is self-ratifying, and implies that other instances
  are at their default value.
}}}



Judge Murphy's Arguments:

(Note: This disagrees with Gaelan's interpretation in CFJs 3463-64.)

It's in the best interest of the game to allow uncontroversial
claims to self-ratify and thus become correct, even if they
previously contained undiscovered errors, and even if those errors
are later discovered (because it's simpler to design equity patches
than retroactively recalculate gamestate). By extension, it's in the
best interests of the game to allow a mostly-correct set of claims
to mostly-self-ratify.

Rule 2162 (Switches), relevant portion:

   3. Optionally, exactly one office whose holder tracks instances
  of that switch.  That officer's (weekly, if not specified
  otherwise) report includes the value of each instance of that
  switch whose value is not its default value; a public
  document purporting to be this portion of that officer's
  report is self-ratifying, and implies that other instances
  are at their default value.

Per best-interests, this should not be interpreted as requiring an
exact specification of all such values; acknowledging a dispute is
sufficient, and such an explicit acknowledgment prevents the switch in
question from being included in "implies that other switches".

The effect of ratification is to minimally modify the gamestate so that
the ratified material is as true and accurate as possible.

   * A self-contradictory statement can't be true or accurate, but in a
 set of mostly independent claims, only the ones involved in self- or
 mutual contradiction are affected. (A report of Shiny holdings where
 the grand total didn't match the sum of parts would arguably be
 completely ineffective if ratified, but that's beyond the scope of
 this case.)

   * A statement of "X's Y is disputed", 

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3527 Judged FALSE by V.J Rada

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3527
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3527  ==

   ais523 has 0 shinies.



Caller:   omd

Judge:V.J Rada
Judgement:FALSE



History:

Called by omd:19 Jun 2017   
Assigned to V.J Rada: 19 Jun 2017
Judged FALSE by V.J Rada: 21 Jun 2017



Caller's Arguments:

First of all, does 0.5 count as an "amount" per Rule 2483?

If so, Rule 2483 purports to decrease my balance by 0.5 and increase
ais523's balance by 0.5, which in both cases would mean setting
balance to an impossible value.  Does that trigger this clause from
Rule 2162?

   If an instance of a switch would otherwise fail to have a
   possible value, it comes to have its default value.

...Or does "No other values are possible for instances of that switch",
also from Rule 2162, simply forbid the change altogether?  (Rule 2162
has precedence over Rule 2483.)



Caller's Evidence:

On Mon, 2017-06-19 at 18:23 -0400, omd wrote:
> I pay ais523 0.5 shinies.



Judge V.J Rada's Arguments:

Can a decimal amount of Shinies be transferred? I find that it cannot. The 
word "amount" is ambiguous enough for other considerations to come into 
play, and the intent of the rules, other clauses in the ruleset, and 
consequences all point towards an interpretation that only integers can be 
transferred. I find this CFJ false.

This CFJ comes from omd, who attempted to give 0.5 Shinies to ais523
and called for judgement on whether ais523 had 0 Shinies. His legal 
theory was that because decimals are an impossible value for Balance
Switches, ais523's Switch would reset to its default: 0. However the 
threshold question is, can this decimal transfer have any effect?

"Any player CAN pay Agora, any other player, or any organization any 
amount by announcement, unless it would make eir own balance
negative.", states rule 2483. Is a decimal quantity an amount? Because 
amount is undefined, I look to the ordinary meaning. It is clear that "an
amount of money" includes any number of parts or subparts of monetary
units, but "an amount of coins" implies an integer of coins, not half a 
coin. Shinies are like coins. The ruleset cabins Balance Switches to
only integers and no other value. Others have proposed a different 
physical analogy. Balance Switches are like the switch on a radio: it's 
a knob but it only changes at integers. Whatever the analogy
preferred, the words "an amount of money" is more naturally interpreted
as an integer amount.

The consequences of allowing players to transfer to other players non-
integer amounts of money would be disastrous. It is very probable
(although I do not decide it) that a player would be able to immediately
null another player's balance with such a transfer. A financial system
open to such mischief would be a great shame. Additionally, allowing
decimals could open the way to more complicated mathematical 
constructs, which would be a nightmare to track if it worked.

This trick also has, as far as I know, no support in game practise, at
least in the current economic system.

For the foregoing reasons, the transfer between omd and ais523
never occurred. ais523 has (I believe) 66 shinies, the judgement
is FALSE

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3531 Judged DISMISS by omd

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3531
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3531  ==

   A player other than the ADoP may initiate elections for an office
   by announcement if that office has been deputized for within the
   last 2 weeks or no election has occured for that office within the
   last 90 days. V.J. Rada initiated 3 such elections on 27 June.



Caller:   V.J Rada

Judge:omd
Judgement:DISMISS



History:

Called by V.J Rada:   28 Jun 2017
Assigned to omd:  28 Jun 2017
Judged DISMISS by omd:29 Jun 2017



Caller's Arguments:

I request that the judge (oh, I bar CuddleBeam) take
notice of the agora discussion thread beginning with
me calling those elections.

The first message in the thread in question is archived here, along
with links to the others:




Judge omd's Arguments:

Since I feel like being a stickler, DISMISS for malformed statement
(which is actually two different statements with no logical
connective).

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3526 Judged TRUE by o

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3526
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3526  ==

   CFJ 3509 has no judgement.



Caller:   V.J Rada 
Barred:   CuddleBeam

Judge:o
Judgement:TRUE



History:

Called by V.J Rada:   13 Jun 2017   
Assigned to o:14 Jun 2017
Judged TRUE by o: 15 Jun 2017



Caller's Arguments:

There are three possibilities. 1: The statement is TRUE. The DISMISS
judgement is invalid as overridden by him agreeing to reconsider. The
later judgement is invalid as a judgement for a different statement.
NOTE: If the statement is TRUE, the CFJ has been open for over 7 days
and can be reassigned wink wink nudge nudge put me in coach. 2: The
statement is FALSE because the latter judgement is valid, even if it
refers to a different CFJ. 3: The statement is FALSE because the earlier
judgement is valid. Cuddlebeam agreed to reconsider it, but on June 10
again refused to judge it. This should be taken as a refusal to
reconsider. Thus, the DISMISS judgement is valid.



Caller's Evidence:

This statement is not authoritative, it's a true account of what happened
though. If you want the original messages, surely it wouldn't be too much
of a hardship. Or you can ask me for them and I'll dig

On May 24, Cuddlebeam was assigned 3509 and 3508. On May 25, they refused
to judge 3509. On May 25, they judged it DISMISS. On May 25, PSS moved for
reconsideration. On May 25, Cuddlebeam accepted reconsideration. On June
1, CB submitted a message titled "Judgement of CFJ 3509" with identical
text to their previous Judgement in CFJ 3508. They now refuse to judge
it again, despite accepting reconsideration.



Judge o's Arguments:

At the heart of this confusing tale is a single proposition: that on two
occasions, CuddleBeam assigned a judgement to CFJ 3509.

This proposition is false. No message originating from CuddleBeam
assigns a judgement to CFJ 3509. Several messages are labelled as if
they do so, but inspection of their contents shows that they do not. To
make sense of this we must look at the statement in question in CFJ
3509. From Aris? message assigning the CFJ number:

> On May 23, 2017, at 9:14 PM, Alex Smith 
> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2017-05-22 at 19:20 -0700, Gaelan Steele wrote:
> > I CFJ on these statements:
> >
> > "Any player may take the office of Rulekeepor with 2 support." [i.e.
> > I got a pink slip]
> > "o committed a cardable offense in issuing a Pink Slip to Gaelan."
> >
> > I bar o from both CFJs.
>
> These are CFJ 3508 and CFJ 3509 respectively. I assign them to
> CuddleBeam.

The statement in CFJ 3509 is

> o committed a cardable offense in issuing a Pink Slip to Gaelan.

Let?s look at CuddleBeam?s messages. First, on May 25th, e published a
message with the subject "CFJ 3509 Judgement (Dismissed, insufficient
information)", which assigned a judgement to the statement

> Any player may take the office of Rulekeepor with 2 support.

This is not the statement in CFJ 3509, in spite of the subject of the
message, and therefore does not assign a judgement to CFJ 3509. Judges
are not empowered to replace the statement, thankfully.

Second, on June 1st, e published a message with the subject "CFJ 3509
Judgement (Dismissed, insufficient information)". This message assigns a
judgement to the statement

> Any player may take the office of Rulekeepor with 2 support.

Again, this is not the statement in CFJ 3509, and does not assign a
judgement to that CFJ. CuddleBeam even noted the error in the subject
line of this message in a subsequent reply the same day.

As far as I can find, there are no other messages from CuddleBeam which
either purport to assign a judgement to CFJ 3509, and no other messages
from CuddleBeam assigning judgement to the statement in that CFJ. As no
other Judge has been appointed, it is impossible for anyone else to have
assigned a judgement.

Therefore CFJ 3509 has never been assigned a judgement, and the statement

> CFJ 3509 has no judgement

is TRUE.

OFF: [CotC] CFJ 3521 Judged FALSE by Publius Scribonius Scholasticus

[Kerim Aydin]

status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3521
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).

==  CFJ 3521  ==

   The proposal "Throw off Your Chains" is a competition proposal
   for the current proposal competition.



Caller:   G.

Judge:Gaelan

Judge:Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
Judgement:FALSE



History:

Called by G.:05 Jun 2017
Assigned to Gaelan:  06 Jun 2017
Gaelan Recused:  28 Jun 2017
Assigned to Publius Scribonius Scholasticus: 28 Jun 2017
Judged FALSE by Publius Scribonius Scholasticus: 28 Jun 2017



Caller's Arguments:

Rule 2431 reads in part:
  any player CAN specify that a Proposal e submits is
   a Competition Proposal for that Competition.

Whether this is in the proposal competition depends on whether
Quazie "submitted" the proposal, and whether G. had the ability
through the BÖÖ Agency to specify the competition.



Caller's Evidence:
(message sent by G.)

I use the BÖÖ Agency to submit the following proposal, "Throw off Your
Chains", AI-3, specifying that it is a Competition Proposal for the
current proposal competition:
--
WHEREAS:
The perpetuation of dictatorship is not treating Agora Right Good
Forever;

and WHEREAS:
The existence of dictatorship is an anathema, and the presence of
a current dictatorship in the Rules is a Mess of our own making;

and WHEREAS:
The persons in power have not made a visible effort to clean up
said mess, in perhaps hoping that the hoi agorai will remain
docile, or apathetic;

and WHEREAS:
such docility, in the long-term, is fully AGAINST OUR NATURE;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED:
That Rule 2942 (Reward and Delay) is hereby REPEALED.
--



Judge Publius Scribonius Scholasticus's Arguments:

I find CFJ 3521 FALSE because Quazie did not grant G. authority to
specify a proposal competition through his agency.

OFF: [Arbitor] CFJ 3551 assigned to o

[Alex Smith]

On Tue, 2017-08-01 at 16:34 +1000, V.J Rada wrote:
> I CFJ on: "If V.J. Rada posted the following text contained in braces
> to a public forum {{I CoE my Reportor's report for no reason, accept
> it, publish the following report and claim 5 Shinies.
> Title: Newspaper
> ---Words---}}
> Agora would transfer em 5 Shinies."

[Arbitor note: I've been trying to assign CFJs to obviously uninvolved
judges, but o has been arguing on a lot of CFJs recently and therefore
ended up behind in opportunities to judge, and so I'm in danger of
failing to keep CFJ assignments balanced. E's only tangentially
involved with this one, so this seems like the fairest place to assign
em.]

This is CFJ 3551, and was paid for using AP. I assign it to o.

> > On Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 4:27 PM, Owen Jacobson  wrote:
> > 
> > On Aug 1, 2017, at 1:17 AM, Aris Merchant
> > > >  wrote:
> > 
> > I think there's a scamable hole in the rule "Rewards". It says that the
> > reward for "Publishing a duty-fulfilling report" is "5 shinies". If you CoE
> > your own report, then it's your duty to revise it. The revision is also a
> > report, and it is at that point your duty to publish it. This allows you
> > steal all of Agora's shinies by CoEing your own report, accepting, and
> > publishing revisions indefinitely many times. If people think this merits a
> > CFJ, I'm happy to call one, but I'd like others to sanity check it first,
> > and I don't have time to write a whole CFJ up right now. It is my opinion
> > that it would be rude for anyone else to use this hole, as I could have just
> > stolen them all myself and then given them back when we fixed the bug.
> > 
> > Sorry for the rushed semi-coherent email,
> > -Aris
> > 
> > 
> > As this is not a CFJ, the following is not a gratuitous argument:
> > 
> > We have recently developed a trend of treating only the final revision as a
> > “duty-fulfilling report” when a series of revisions are CoE’d. This shows up
> > in, for example, the recently-repealed Payday, where I had paid people only
> > once even for reports which received multiple revisions and nobody
> > complained.
> > 
> > That’s probably worth codifying or passing through judgement, but I’m out of
> > AP and I need to keep my Shinies to pay the auction winner with.

-- 
ais523
Arbitor

OFF: [Arbitor] CFJ 3550 assigned to Quazie

[Alex Smith]

On Tue, 2017-08-01 at 01:48 -0400, Owen Jacobson wrote:
> > On Jul 30, 2017, at 3:06 PM, Nic Evans  wrote:
> > 
> > Everything in the last attempt failed because I never had any
> > shinies, stamps did not exist, and the mechanisms of ASaAA refered
> > to were void at that time. So here they are again:
> > 
> > Since I have not received a Welcome package since I most recently
> > registered, I cause myself to receive one now.
> > 
> > {
> > Me: 50 sh.
> > Agora: 950 sh.
> > }
> > 
> > I transfer 40 shinies to Agora to create a stamp.
> > 
> > {
> > Me: 10 sh. 1 Stamp (nichdel)
> > Agora: 990
> > }
> > 
> > I transfer 1 shiny to ASaAA, which gives me one ASaAA proxy.
> > 
> > {
> > Me: 9 sh. 1 Stamp (nichdel). 1 ASaAA Proxy
> > ASaAA: 8 sh.
> > }
> > 
> > I transfer my Stamp (nichdel) to ASaAA and, on behalf of the ASaAA,
> > transfer 8 shinies to me.
> > 
> > {
> > Me: 17 sh. 1 ASaAA Proxy
> > ASaAA: 0 sh. 1 Stamp (nichdel)
> > }
> > 
> > I note that the ASaAA has now transitioned from an Open Session to
> > a Voting Session.
> > 
> > I vote for myself in the ASaAA Voting Session 1 time, using all my
> > Proxies.
> 
> I spend an action point, if it is possible for me to do so, to call
> for judgement on the following statement:
> 
>   Nichdel has 1 Stamp (nichdel) and 9 Shinies.

This is CFJ 3550 and was paid for using AP. I assign it to Quazie.

> Caller’s arguments:
> 
> First, my apologies to whichever poor sap gets to judge this, because
> you get to do some forensic accounting. I keep fairly complete
> records, so feel more than free to request further evidence.
> 
> The core of this CFJ is a transaction nichdel performed immediately
> prior to the passage of proposal 7867:
> 
> On Jul 29, 2017, at 7:12 PM, Nic Evans  wrote:
> 
> > I transfer 7 shinies to ASaAA.
> 
> 
> (Re: BUS: Transfer)
> 
> However, according to my records, at this time nichdel had a balance
> of 2 Shinies. Per rule 2483 (“Economics”) in effect at that time:
> 
> > Any player CAN pay Agora, any other player, or any organization any
> > amount by announcement, unless it would make eir own balance
> > negative. Any attempt to PAY any amount that would make any
> > player's or any organization's balance negative is INEFFECTIVE,
> > rules to the contrary notwithstanding.
> 
> Paying 7 Shinies with a balance of 2 Shinies would make nichdel’s
> balance -5 Shinies, and therefore the payment is ineffective.
> 
> No other payments have ever been made to ASaAA, so its balance was,
> and remained, zero.
> 
> Subsequently, proposal 7867 passed, which zeroed all players’
> balances, and reset Agora’s balance to 1,000 Shinies. (Organization
> balances were not affected, a fact which appears to have been
> intentional in hindsight.)
> 
> Afterwards, after some minor paperwork cleanup, nichdel performed the
> following trivially-successful transactions, quoted above:
> 
> * Received 50 shinies from Agora via a Welcome Package (nichdel: 50
> sh)
> * Paid 40 shinies to Agora to create 1 stamp in eir own possession
> (nichdel: 10 sh, 1 stamp)
> * Paid 1 shiny to ASaAA (nichdel: 9 sh, 1 stamp; ASaAA: 1 sh)
> 
> Finally, e attempted to have ASaAA pay em 8 shinies in exchange for a
> stamp. E noted this as a single transaction. Since ASaAA does not
> have 8 Shinies, by rule 2483:
> 
> > Any organization CAN pay Agora, any player, or any other
> > organization by announcement by a member of said organization, as
> > specified in the charter of said organization, unless it would make
> > the organization's balance negative. Any attempt by any player to
> > cause an organization to pay any amount that would make that
> > organization's balance negative is INEFFECTIVE, rules to the
> > contrary notwithstanding.
> 
> This payment cannot succeed, and therefore neither can the
> transaction it is part of.

-- 
ais523
Arbitor

OFF: [Secretary] Weekly Report

[Owen Jacobson]

Secretary's Weekly Report

Date of this report: Sun, 30 Jul 2017
Date of last report: Sun, 23 Jul 2017


Recent events (all times UTC):

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 02:53:50  Agora paid 18 Shinies (Cuddlebeam)
Tue, 11 Jul 2017 04:35:38  Agora paid 6 Shinies (Murphy)
- previous report -
Tue, 18 Jul 2017 06:22:06  Cuddlebeam paid 1 Shiny (o)
Thu, 20 Jul 2017 23:26:34  Agora paid 5 Shinies (V.J Rada)
Fri, 21 Jul 2017 07:04:21  Cuddlebeam deregistered
Sun, 23 Jul 2017 23:38:13  nichdel created Organization "Agoran Stamps
and Awards Association"
- time of last report -
Tue, 25 Jul 2017 18:00:40  nichdel changed Budget with ASaAA to 10
Tue, 25 Jul 2017 21:08:31  nichdel paid 2 Shinies (Gaelan)
Sat, 29 Jul 2017 03:06:25  nichdel changed Budget with ASaAA to 50
Sun, 30 Jul 2017 19:06:20  Proposal 7867 enacted
Sun, 30 Jul 2017 19:06:39  nichdel claimed a Welcome Package
Sun, 30 Jul 2017 19:06:39  nichdel paid Agora 40 sh.
Sun, 30 Jul 2017 19:06:39  nichdel paid organization "ASaAA" 1 sh.
(An event has been provisionally omitted, pending one or more CFJs.)
Sun, 30 Jul 2017 19:35:53  ais523 claimed Welcome Packages for
 * ais523
 * Aris
 * Murphy
 * o
 * Sprocklem
 * 天火狐
 * Zachary Watterson
 * Quazie,
 * Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
 * tmanthe2nd
 * Gaelan
 * Ienpw III,
 * Veggiekeks
 * omd
 * V.J. Rada
 * Bayushi
 * Ajay Kumar Raja
 * grok


Personal Lockouts: None

Global Lockout: No


Balances:

  90 Shinies  Agora
   6 Shinies  Organization
   1 ShiniesASaAA
   5 ShiniesAVM
 909 Shinies  Player
  50 ShiniesAjay Kumar Raja
  50 ShiniesAris
  50 ShiniesBayushi
  50 ShiniesGaelan
  50 ShiniesIenpw III,
  50 ShiniesMurphy
  50 ShiniesPublius Scribonius Scholasticus
  50 ShiniesQuazie,
  50 ShiniesSprocklem
  50 ShiniesV.J. Rada
  50 ShiniesVeggiekeks
  50 ShiniesZachary Watterson
  50 Shiniesais523
  50 Shiniesgrok
   9 Shiniesnichdel
  50 Shinieso
  50 Shiniesomd
  50 Shiniestmanthe2nd
  50 Shinies天火狐

This information is provisional pending one or more open CFJs.


Budgets:

Player ABM  ACU  ASaAA  AVM  蘭亭社 Expenditure
--
ais523  25   30  55
nichdel 50   50
Murphy   50  50
o50  50
omd  20  20
Sprocklem   25   20  45
天火狐   50   50

Income  50  120 50   50 50  320

ABM = The Agoran Betting Market
ACU = The Agoran Credit Union
AVM = The Agoran Voting Market



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