(Revised) Judge's arguments for CFJ 3523: As the caller argues, "TTttPF" (this time to the Public Forum) has a very specific meaning and effect. It causes the actions that would have been taken had the quoted message been originally sent to the public forum to be taken. Despite being defined by no rule, game custom makes its meaning clear to all players. The question here is whether other, less established forms may have similar effect. "TTttPF" is a creature entirely of convention. It has effect because all players understand what it means. The message here could not, in context, be reasonably misunderstood. I therefore rule that it has effect, but only in this particular instance. There are other cases where the phrasing could be misunderstood. For example, what if the player took other actions in the new message? Then the meaning could be "this action didn't work, and I've changed my mind and am doing other actions". Unlikely, but possible. I thus rule that the established phrasing should be preferred for its lack of ambiguity, and this case's phrasing succeeded because, in context, it lacked any other reasonable interpretation.
However, there is another issue for me to consider. Is it possible to bar someone after calling the case, in another message? I turn first to the text of the rule. Rule 991 (Calls for Judgement) states "Any person (the initiator) can initiate a Call for Judgement (CFJ, syn. Judicial Case) by announcement, specifying a statement to be inquired into. E may optionally bar one person from the case." Nothing in that rule says that the barring has to be in the same message. If the rule implies that conclusion, it certainly doesn't do so very noticeably. No precedent on this has been presented, so I will now consider the interests of the game (it's rather hard to have a negative game custom, so I'm ignoring that). Under our current rules, a person may initiate up to 5 CFJs per week. That's a pretty high limit, so the main effect prohibiting post-call barring would have would be to create more paperwork, as people could just re-call the case. In accordance with my interpretation of the rule text and the best interests of the game, I rule TRUE. -Aris
