On Sat, Feb 1, 2020 at 3:10 PM Jason Cobb via agora-business <agora-busin...@agoranomic.org> wrote: > I agree with the caller that the "minimal change" caused by ratification > does not insert events to cancel out the changes it just made. Instead, > the ratification simply fails to adjust the gamestate except at the > modification date. The ratification itself does not cancel out its own > changes; the changes are simply not propagated through time.
In this case, the resulting fictional history implies that the switch value changed without any event to make it change. I'd argue that this constitutes an "inconsistenc[y] between the gamestate and the rules". Changing Publicity is a regulated action, since it "would [..] modify information for which some player is required to be a recordkeepor". As a result, it "CAN only be performed as described by the Rules, and only using the methods explicitly specified in the Rules for performing the given action" (R2125). Also, Publicity is a secured value, which means that it's "IMPOSSIBLE [..] to set or modify that value, except as allowed by an Instrument with Power [>= 3]" (R1688). Both of these contradict the notion that the value can change for no reason at all. You might argue that ratification itself was described in the Rules as a method of making gamestate changes, and was allowed by a Rule with Power >= 3. And that's arguably what allows the original flip to Discussion. But I find it harder to believe that ratification was the cause of the 'flip by omission' back to Public, when the reason the flip supposedly exists at all is as a natural consequence of ratification *not* making a change.
