On Sun, 18 Jun 2017, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> I can't claim that the clause in the current ruleset is the direct lineage
> from that ancient scam, but I think that since then, there's always been
> something high-powered and explicit in the rules that a person must give
> informed consent to be considered part of any agreement.
Maybe more useful than going all the way back to the Mousetrap for rules
interpretation, the current clause came from when we had a "Bill of Rights"
in Rule 101. It included this Right:
iii. Every person has the right to refuse to become party to
a binding agreement. The absence of a person's explicit,
willful consent shall be considered a refusal.
and this is how it handled player/non-player questions:
vii. Every player has the right to deregister; e may continue
to accrue obligations and penalties after deregistration
but, if e wishes to ignore the game, such penalties shall
not unduly harass em.
The current language on binding agreements rather conflates these two ideas,
maybe the current situation shows that it conflates them too much!
