I’m strongly tempted to move to reconsider this, and apologize for failing to
provide arguments earlier (honestly, I totally forgot about this case). I
really don’t think this opinion adequately considers the other sensible
possibility: that the proposal fails entirely.
To begin with, when someone submits a proposal, they’re performing the action
of creating an entity that has certain properties. If creating an entity with
the properties specified is impossible, there’s no way for them to do that (the
speech act cannot make itself true). This is a very different situation from
the one where they leave something blank, and we fill it in with a default
value. There, the person is still performing the speech act they wrote out,
it’s just that the entity they create also has additional properties. Here,
we’re actually rewriting an ineffective speech act to turn it into an effective
one, which feels deeply disturbing and totally unlike the way Agora speech acts
normally work.
Another problem is that, since we’re rewriting what someone said, we break
referential transparency and bump into other counter-intuitive behavior. If
someone says “I submit a proposal with properties X, Y, and Z, and AI 0.5. I
retract that proposal.”, no proposal would result under this theory. However,
if we substituted the variable “that”, we get “I submit a proposal with
properties X, Y, and Z, and AI 0.5. I retract the proposal with properties X,
Y, and Z, and AI 0.5.” However, this leads to a proposal still existing, since
there *is* no proposal with AI 0.5, unless it’s proposed that we rewrite that
sentence too, which makes even less sense. To be clear, I’m not saying that
Agora always follows referential transparency, just that we need a principled
reason to break it and this really doesn’t feel like one.
In short, I think it’s by far the cleanest if we read statements literally and
don’t allow the defaulting of invalid values. I’d like to know if others think
I could have a point, and if they do I’ll file a motion (unless the judge cares
to self-file one). I really think their are some counter-arguments here that
deserve consideration, and would go so far as to suggest that if the current
interpretation is sustained we might want to legislate to make sure that
announcements are read literally.
-Aris
On Sun, Jun 30, 2019 at 5:47 PM D. Margaux <dmargaux...@gmail.com> wrote:
Both 3744 and 3745 judged TRUE. Not sure what is the difference between them.
The question in both is, when a player attempts to create a proposal with an
invalid adoption index, does the attempt fail or does the AI retain its default
value?
I think it retains its default value.
A player can create a proposal "by announcement," if e specifies certain
mandatory attributes. The failure to state a valid adoption index does not make the
attempted proposal creation INEFFECTIVE, because that attribute is an optional
specification.
For Agoran decisions that have an adoption index, the value of that adoption
index is an essential parameter. As a result, it must have some value. When a
player specifies an invalid AI, then no other value seems possible aside from
the default one.
On Jun 30, 2019, at 4:01 PM, Kerim Aydin <ke...@uw.edu> wrote:
The below is CFJ 3744. I assign it to D. Margaux.
=============================== CFJ 3744 ===============================
There exists a proposal with the title 'It's caused enough trouble
already' and with a valid adoption index.
==========================================================================
Caller: Jason Cobb
Judge: D. Margaux
==========================================================================
History:
Called by Jason Cobb: 23 Jun 2019 22:07:24
Assigned to D. Margaux: [now]
==========================================================================
Gratuitous Arguments by G.:
When you submit a proposal, it is "optional" to include an adoption index
(R2350). The default value in R1950 is "none" so that likely means the
result (if you submit without specifying at all) is a proposal with "AI =
none".
If you submit with an invalid (but optional) AI, I'm not at all sure
whether it invalidates the proposal creation or sets it at default.
For example, in the case of Rule Changes, if you say "Amend Rule XXXX
([Title])", including the [Title] is optional, but if you specify the
title incorrectly, precedent holds that it invalidates the whole rule
change as overly ambiguous, though that relies on the "Any ambiguity..."
clause in R105 specific to Rule Changes.
Falsifian specified an (invalid) AI of 0.5 when submitting the proposal
in question. So for more general by-announcement actions, does
specifying an invalid but optional parameter invalidate the whole process?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gratuitous Evidence by G.:
On 6/23/2019 9:08 AM, James Cook wrote to agora-business:
I create a proposal with the following attributes and text:
Title: It's caused enough trouble already
Adoption index: 0.5
Co-authors: none (empty list)
Text: Repeal Rule 2596 (The Ritual).
Rule 2350/11 (Power=3)
Proposals
A proposal is a type of entity consisting of a body of text and
other attributes. A player CAN create a proposal by announcement,
specifying its text and optionally specifying any of the following
attributes:
* An associated title.
* A list of co-authors (which must be persons other than the
author).
* An adoption index.
Creating a proposal adds it to the Proposal Pool. Once a proposal
is created, neither its text nor any of the aforementioned
attributes can be changed. [...]
==========================================================================
