On Mon, 2009-03-16 at 16:39 +0000, Alex Smith wrote:
> I call for judgement on the statement "Murphy's recent attempt to cause
> Rule 2223 to amend itself to read 'This rule intentionally left blank'
> failed because it was ambiguous which of two mechanisms were used to do
> the amendment.", barring Murphy.
I submit the following extra arguments on this, based on discussion on
IRC:
The problem here is that the source of the mechanism really can matter.
For instance, Murphy was recently simultaneously contestmaster of two
contests (The Werewolves of Nomic Crossing, and the Fantasy Rules
Contest). During this period, e attempted to award points. Rule 2233
says:
{{{
Its contestmaster CAN award points (up to this total) to
its other parties by announcement, and SHALL do so as
explicitly described in its contract.
}}}
Ignore the SHALL part of this for the moment; I'm interested in the CAN.
There are two sources of the ability to award points by announcement
(two contests), but which is used certainly matters; it alters the
remaining point allotal of the contest that is used. Murphy announced in
the message
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg11471.html
"I award 8 points to Wooble and 12 points to ais523.", without
specifying the mechanism (obviously by announcement, that was an
announcement) or the source of the mechanism. I'm not entirely convinced
that that worked (although IIRC points are self-ratifying, so this
doesn't affect anything); certainly, only context made it obvious which
contest was granting the point-awardal power. In the case of Murphy's
recent attempt to effectively blank rule 2223, the mechanism (or its
source) does not make a ridiculous amount of difference, although it
does affect the result of the first of the CFJs I called.
--
ais523
