On Sat, Apr 4, 2020 at 7:29 PM Alexis Hunt via agora-discussion <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 at 22:16, Jason Cobb via agora-discussion < > agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > > Sorry, I should have been more clear, and I wasn't asking specifically > > about this situation. > > > > Consider an auction with one lot and the following bids: > > > > - Alice: 2 coins > > > > - Bob: 1 coin > > > > > > Per Rule 2551, a person's priority is "their position in the list of > > persons who have bid on the Auction, sorted by the value of their > > non-withdrawn bids in descending order." This list is [Alice, Bob]. > > Assuming 0-based indexing (because I can), Alice's priority is 0, and > > Bob's priority is 1. > > > > Also per Rule 2551, "For each lot in the Auction, the winner of that lot > > is the player with the highest priority on the Auction who has not won > > any previous lot." Bob has the highest priority (1 vs. 0), so e is the > > winner the sole lot, despite having a smaller bid. > > > > I think that the rule admits an interpretation either way; your > interpretation is viable, but it's also very standard for "first position" > to be highest priority and there's no specific callout to numerical values > of position in the rule. So I would tend to the opinion that common sense > and good of the game would decide here.
There's another bug, though it may not apply in this case. That paragraph reads in full: "A person's priority on an Auction is their position in the list of persons who have bid on the Auction, sorted by the value of their non-withdrawn bids in descending order. If two persons have placed non-withdrawn bids for the same value, a player who placed their non-withdrawn bid first has a higher priority than a player who placed their non-withdrawn bid at a later time." What's supposed to happen there is that the first sentence provides a mechanism for determining priority and the second sentence resolves an ambiguity in the mechanism. Except reading the text literally that's unambiguously not what happens. If the protasis of the second sentence is true we've gotta apply its apodosis. If any two bids have the same value, then it's true that "a player who placed their non-withdrawn bid first has a higher priority than a player who placed their non-withdrawn bid at a later time". Note that's "a player", not "the player". The change in article completely changes the meaning. What it actually ends up saying is that if the protasis is true then priority is suddenly determined for *everyone* by bidding time, rather than bid amount. -Aris
