On Mon, 2009-03-09 at 10:49 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote: > Gratuitous response: > > The text of Rule 2234 is "performed duties related to the contest in a timely > manner". There are two ways to read this. The first (which ais523 argues > for) is that "if the contest currently mandates no duties, then the > contestmaster performs them by doing nothing." What I argue for is the > interpretation "If no or negligible duties have been performed, then the > contestmaster has not in fact performed duties, as performing an empty set of > duties is the same as not performing duties, even if that empty set is in > keeping with the contract text". > > Why do I argue that "neglibible" duties as being the same (or suitably close) > to no duties for these purposes? Negligible with respect to what? > > Contests are contracts, which have a set of anticipated duties contained > within the text. Based on these anticipated duties, players grant contest > status to contracts. If the contest becomes inactive relative to these > anticipated duties, the contract is not proceeding as envisioned, and > duties are not being performed "as anticipated by the contest" in the sense > of Equity. The text of Rule 2234 is "performed duties related to the > contest in a timely manner", and if those duties are suitably negligible > relative to what the contest "envisioned" duties to be (when, for example, > it became a contest or its text was last changed w/o 3 objections), the > anticipated duties are not being performed, and the scorekeepor is > correct and within eir duties and abilities to make this call.
I have actually considered bringing an equity case against Enigma because its contestants aren't submitting puzzles (thus giving me work to do!) As far as I can tell, the contract in question mostly envisions regular submissions of puzzles by contestants, but that hasn't been happening recently. (The only reason I haven't is that I know there will be puzzles soon, almost certainly there'll be one authored by me in next week's puzzle list.) It's also worth pointing out that the "SHALL do so as explicitly described in its contract" in rule 2233 is a duty shared by all contestmasters; just nobody's been doing well enough (in Enigma's case, by submitting puzzles) to deserve points. -- ais523 Contestmaster, Enigma
