I intend, with 2 support, to group-file a Motion to Reconsider CFJ 3978.
(Or ais523 could just self-file and address this which would be cool.)
On Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 2:52 PM ais523 via agora-business <
agora-business@agoranomic.org> wrote:
>
>
> The text used by the author was "81 times, I submit the following
> proposal:". The meaning of "the following proposal" seems fairly clear
> that it refers to only a single proposal, so this was an attempt to
> submit one proposal multiple times.
>
This assumption fails to consider a clearly possible reading: it was an
attempt to submit a proposal with the following attributes 81 times, not
submit the same proposal 81 times. The method supports this:
by announcement,
specifying its text and optionally specifying any of the following
attributes:
* An associated title.
* A list of coauthors (which must be persons other than the
author).
* An adoption index.
The "proposal" I had included was not really a proposal at all, it was me
specifying the proposal's text and other attributes. In essence, I claim "I
submit the following proposal" is just shorthand for "I submit a proposal
with the following attributes", just as Jason had used, and which you ruled
to have worked.
>
> a) For proposals, "create" and "submit" are synonyms.
>
> b) "Creating" and "submitting" a proposal are two different actions,
> the latter action being impossible because there's no mechanism to
> perform it.
>
> The only difference between these two readings is how the proposal's
> author is defined; in reading a), a proposal's author is its creator;
> in reading b), proposals have no author (but the proposal system
> otherwise works correctly). I can't see anything in the rules that
> implies that proposals have to have an author (rule 107 requires the
> Promotor to specify a proposal's author when distributing it, but it
> seems like that requirement could be satisfied by saying "this proposal
> has no author" – it's clearly possible to have a proposal with no
> coauthors, and those can be distributed), and past CFJs (e.g. CFJ 1780)
> have found that there are situations in which proposals with no author
> can exist.
>
> Reading a) clearly wins a rule 217 tie-break, but I'm not sure it's
> actually consistent with the wording of the rules; it may be that we
> have to go with the absurd reading b) because anything else would
> violate the literal text of the rules. I think that reading a) is
> legitimate because "submit" is effectively defined as "become an author
> of" (because "author" is defined as "person who submitted"), and a
> proposal's author cannot be changed after creation, so the only way to
> submit a proposal (i.e. become the author of one) is to create it. This
> is a little tortured, though, and so I wouldn't be surprised if another
> judge found differently.
>
This all seems fine.
> If submitting a proposal is a
> synonym for creating it, trying to create the same proposal 81 times is
> something that goes against the plain meaning of "create" – creating
> something causes it to exist, so you can't create something that
> already exists.
This is my main issue with the judgement; it seems perfectly fine to create
something multiple times in natural language. We do that all the time with
coins, which are fungible, we create something that already exists. But
importantly, even if it was against natural language, it's still defined as
possible in the rules.
Rule 2350 (Proposals)
A player CAN create a proposal by announcement,
specifying its text and optionally specifying any of the following
attributes:
So we can't just say you can't do it because of the "plain meaning",
especially when that meaning is contested. If I had used the word "create"
instead of "submit", I would have expected it to work just the same.
> If submitting a proposal isn't a synonym for creating
> it, then proposals can't be "submitted" because there's no mechanism to
> do so (and the message didn't succed in creating the same proposal 81
> times, either), but this doesn't break the game because in taht
> reading, "submitting" proposals isn't a required step in adopting them.
>
This is fine too.
>
> I issue a claim of error against the Promotor's attempted initiation,
> on 10 or 11 July 2022, of Agoran Decisions as to whether to adopt
> "proposal 8725" to "proposal 8804" inclusive – these initiations did
> not occur because the proposals in question did not exist and/or were
> not in the Proposal Pool, so there was no mechanism via which they
> could have been made.
>
I cite CFJ 3978.
>
> ----
>
> > > CFJ: Proposals 8806 through 8810 were submitted.
> >
> > The above is CFJ 3979.
> >
> > I assign CFJ 3979 to ais523.
>
> This time, the attempted action was is "5 times, I submit a proposal
> with the following attributes:". This is significantly different from
> the case of CFJ 3978 because the text of the message no longer states
> that the same proposal is being submitted each time (rather, it simply
> requires the proposals to have the same attributes).
While I think this judgement is fine, again I disagree with the arguments
here: my submission did not state that the same proposal entity was being
submitted multiple times, that is just an assumption. The method Jason used
is not significantly different from mine.
> If "submit" and
> "create" are synonyms, this clearly works because it's possible to
> create five identical proposals, and this is the only sensible reading
> of the text;
>
If we can "create five identical proposals" how is that substantially
different from creating "five of the same proposal"? If it is different, I
believe the first is what my message said it was doing anyways.
I hope all these points will be addressed, though really it's just a few:
My method was reasonably shorthand for Jason's method.
Even if it wasn't, creation of one thing multiple times is natural and
rules-supported.
My method was just listing the attributes of a proposal as described in the
rules, not actually a "proposal entity", so me submitting "the following
proposal" multiple times would just be submitting a proposal with those
same attributes multiple times, not the same proposal entity.
Even though I have mild incentive for these CFJs to be judged a certain
way, I truly disagree with the logic of these judgements as they are
currently argued, and would rather see a more complete judgement, and I
trust ais523 to respond diligently.
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