Heh. Deja vu all over again. So this whole issue was brought up in Jan 2019, and resulted in CFJs 3693-3694. The Judge's full arguments (below) appeared only in discussion, and there was a big thread (referenced below). The judge of CFJ 3694 found that zombie auctions worked, but it was quite, er, unique to agora reasoning. But the judgement wasn't appealed for whatever reason.
Then in June 2019 it was noticed again, and Falsifian proposed a legislative fix. At that time, I mentioned "here's the court case" and assembled it from the original discussion thread (that's the message below). The legislative fix drafting was dropped (I don't think because of the court case, it looks like the first drafts had difficulty with the wording and new drafts weren't proposed). Now here we are a third time. Whatever we can say about CFJ 3694, the judgement is suitably unintuitive such that almost no one reading the rules without this precedent/context thinks that zombie auctions actually work... ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Kerim Aydin <ke...@uw.edu> Date: Sun, Jun 23, 2019 at 1:12 PM Subject: DIS: Re: BUS: Zombie auction fix To: <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> Hi folks, I thought we'd done this before, quite recently in fact (unless I'm misunderstanding the question!). CFJs 3693-3694 found that a zombie CAN be transferred as the result of an auction, under the current rules. The case arguments are kind of spread in Discussion, but here's a summary: On Jan 10, 2019, at 9:04 PM, twg wrote: > I CFJ: "It is generally IMPOSSIBLE for a zombie to be transferred to the > winner of a lot in a zombie auction." Caller's Arguments: Flipping the zombie master switch is Secured-2, as per the first sentence of R2532. "Transferring" a zombie as the result of an auction is defined in Rule 1885 (also power-2) as a flip of the master switch, however there's nothing there that explicitly says that the Auctioneer CAN make the transfer/flip (i.e. there's nothing that says that Agora CAN flip the switch as the result of the auction). If the auctioneer CANNOT, then my announcement above terminated the auction as per R2552. Judgement (D. Margaux, Jan 20, 2019): > I judge this CFJ FALSE for the reasons I have previously given > regarding this CFJ and CFJ 3693. [There's a prolonged discussion captured in the Court Gazette of the time, https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-official/2019-January/012742.html with lots of gratuitous arguments. But I I think "the arguments" D. Margaux refers to in eir actual judgement are the following:] The CFJ is FALSE, because a necessary implication of the Rules is that Agora CAN transfer a zombie pursuant to a properly initiated Rule 1885 zombie auction. Under Rule 2545 (power=2), “An Auction is a way for entities to give away items in exchange for a currency.” By necessarily implication, if a Rule with high enough power authorizes some player to initiate an auction with a particular item as a lot, then that Rule also necessarily authorizes that player to initiate a process that would “give away [that] item[] in exchange for a currency.” That’s what an auction _is_ under the Rules. Under Rule 1885 (power=2), at the start of the month, “the Registrar CAN put [a] zombie [that meets certain conditions] (along with any other zombies that fulfill the same conditions) up for auction.” By necessary implication, read in conjunction with Rule 2545, that means that a zombie can be transferred pursuant to that auction. Otherwise it wouldn’t be an auction at all—a way of transferring an item for currency. It would be something else entirely. This interpretation is consistent with the best interests of the game and ordinary language. There’s no reason to adopt a contrary interpretation, which would break auctions and zombies.
