On Sat, Oct 10, 2020 at 1:00 PM Aris Merchant <thoughtsoflifeandligh...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Judge's Arguments in CFJ 3884
I self-file a motion to reconsider. I pay the Arbitor 5 coins (for the trouble). I've changed the judgement to remove the word "group", because it's redundant with "open". Judge's Arguments in CFJ 3884 A forum is, in the Agoran context, an open medium for communication. The mailing lists are fora, and we use them to communicate; the IRC channel is similar. I have little basis for using this definition, other than that it is intuitively fitting, and the definition that comes naturally to me. I will, however, point out, that it is a nearly equivalent standard to "place for discussion" (wiktionary) or "a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged" (Oxford Languages, via Google). The one significant addition I've made from those definitions is to add the requirement that a forum must be open. While this is not an intrinsic part of the definition of the word forum in every context, I believe it is suitable in this one. The idea of a forum as a public place for discussion (in the non-technical sense) harkens back to the forum of Ancient Rome, and Agoran fora inherit from that tradition. What does it mean to be a medium for communication? Several standards spring to mind. It could mean that the medium is used for communication. However, this doesn't quite fit -- a newly created mailing list is intuitively a forum, even before the first message is sent via it. However, the fact that something is usable for communication in some way seems too low a standard. A spoon can be used to communicate by tapping it, yet it is obviously not a forum. Thus, I arrive at the following standard. For something to be a forum, people must be actually and reasonably able to join it and communicate via it. Directing messaging is not a forum, because at most two persons can participate in it (assuming one person per account). Accordingly, it is not open. A spoon is not a forum for several reasons. It would be extremely difficult for multiple people to use a spoon to communicate with each other. In addition, no one would have any clue how to use the spoon to communicate, and it is impossible for people to be able to communicate via something in the absence of a protocol. I expect this standard to be refined by future precedent. One thing I want to say now, for the avoidance of doubt, is that something does not cease to be a forum because it is temporarily inaccessible. I think this is consistent with the classical idea of a forum as a public marketplace, which might still be closed in time of emergency or for temporary maintenance. How does the Laser Ranging experiment measure up? No one has agreed on a protocol for communicating via it (would we use Morse code?). I'm not sure if a sufficient number of people have access to the equipment, but even if they did, it would likely be owned by a research organization or government, so they would probably not be in a position to use it for communicating. In short, there is no way the lunar laser ranging experiment is an open medium for communication. FALSE.
