status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3726
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 3726 ===============================
The most recent attempted imposition of the Cold Hand of Justice
by Aris was effective.
==========================================================================
Caller: Aris
Barred: D. Margaux
Judge: Falsifian
Judgement: TRUE
==========================================================================
History:
Called by Aris: 27 May 2019 19:57:51
Assigned to G.: 27 May 2019 20:11:09
G. recuses emself: 28 May 2019 05:58:43
Assigned to Falsifian: 28 May 2019 21:53:44
Judged TRUE by Falsifian: 04 Jun 2019 13:25:46
==========================================================================
Judge's Arguments:
1. Arguments
============
There was a long conversation on the discussion list, starting around
when D. Margaux called a CFJ (later withdrawn) on the thread "[Referee]
Recusal (attn H. Arbitor)" in May 2019, and continuing on the thread
"Proto-judgements of CFJs 3726 and 3727" in June 2019. I will not try to
repeat everything here.
2. Sequence of events (all times UTC)
=====================================
2019-05-20 01:25
The Referee publishes a weekly report specifying that D. Margaux has 0
blots.
2019-05-20 20:32
In the following message, D. Margaux publishes a document and declares
intent to ratify it at a particular time. (I have reformatted it and
removed the quotations of messages it is in reply to.)
> I intend without objection to ratify the following document as true
> at the time 00:00 GMT on 20 May 2019:
>
> { For purposes of this document, “Politics Rules” and “Spaaace Rules”
> have the meaning ascribed to those terms in Proposal 8177.
>
> Any switch created directly by any of the Politics Rules or the
> Spaaace Rules has its default value.
>
> There are no currently existing entities or switches created by the
> Clork pursuant to the Politics Rules or by the Astronomor pursuant to
> the Spaaace Rules. }
>
> The document is false; the reason for ratifying it is that the
> subgames are defunct.
2019-05-21 10:20
D. Margaux deputises as Astronomor and Clork to publish the following
weekly reports:
{there are no entities in existence for which the Astronomor is the
recordkeepor other than those created directly by the Rules. All
switches for which the Astronomor is recordkeepor have their default
value.}
{there are no entities in existence for which the Clork is the
recordkeepor other than those directly created by the Rules. All
switches for which the Clork is recordkeepor have their default value.}
2019-05-25 22:02
omd Points eir Finger at D. Margaux for publishing inaccurate
information in the above reports.
2019-05-25 22:54
D. Margaux, the Referee, authorizes the Arbitor, Aris, to act on eir
behalf to "investigate and conclude the investigation of the finger
pointed".
2019-05-26 22:43
Aris attempts to act on D. Margaux's behalf to impose the Cold Hand of
Justice on D. Margaux and fine em 2 blots, with the following message:
> Alright. There was a clear rule violation here, as the information
> in the report was inaccurate. The violative conduct was undertaken
> for the good of the game, but there were also other options available
> (proposal, or ratification without objection, which would have been
> unlikely to cause any problems done correctly). Ordinarily, a rule
> violation for the good of the game would be a forgiveable one blot
> fine. Under the circumstances though, some additional penalty is
> warranted for failing to adequately consider and discuss options that
> would have avoided violating the rules.
>
> I act on behalf of D. Margaux to impose the Cold Hand of Justice on
> D. Margaux, penalizing em with a forgiveable fine of 2 blots. The
> required words are {optimize, preferentially, consider,
> supersubtilize, adjudication, law, good, bad, future, duty}.
2019-05-26 22:50
D. Margaux attempts to ratify without objection the document e earlier
announced intent to ratify.
2019-05-27 14:11
D. Margaux calls what is later named CFJ 3727.
2019-05-27 19:58
Aris calls what is later named CFJ 3726.
2019-05-27 20:32
The reports D. Margaux published 7 days earlier self-ratify.
3. D. Margaux's attempt to ratify without objection failed.
===========================================================
D. Margaux attempted to ratify a document by ratification without
objection (Rule 2202). Performing actions "without objection" is
described by Rules 1728 and 2595, and requires that "A person (the
initiator) published an announcement of intent that ... specified the
action intended to be taken and the method(s) to be used".
D. Margaux's announcement stated that they intended to ratify the
document "as true at the time 00:00 GMT on 20 May 2019", but Rules 2202
(Ratification Without Objection) and 1551 (Ratification) did not provide
em with a method to accomplish that: ratification by default applies to
the time a document was published, which was not 00:00 GMT. Rule 1551
describes an exception "if the document explicitly specifies a
different past time as being the time the document was true", but D.
Margaux's document, helpfully delimited with {...} notation, does not
contain that date.
The effect of ratification can depend critically on the time at which
the document is ratified to be true at. For example, if a
statement were ratified saying that a player had 1000 Coins, and the
player had attempted to pay 1000 Coins to win the game at some time, it
would be significant whether the statement were ratified as true before
the attempt to pay the fee or after. Therefore, D. Margaux's intent to
ratify the document as true at 00:00 GMT was significantly different
from the ratification e later attempted to perform using Rule 2202, so
the action failed condition 1 of Rule 2595, and was unsuccessful.
4. The self-ratification of D. Margaux's reports
================================================
After D. Margaux's reports self-ratified, the gamestate may have been
modified in a way that effects the truth or falsehood of the statements
in the CFJs.
However, Rule 591 ("Delivering Judgements") says:
> The valid judgements for an inquiry case are as follows, based on
> the facts and legal situation at the time the inquiry case was
> initiated, not taking into account any events since that time:
The words "at the time the inquiry case was initiated" establish how far
back in the timeline we should look to judge the cases, but the text
does not stop there: it explicitly says "not taking into account any
events since that time". I believe that to take into account the
self-ratification event by using the modified gamestate would be to
disregard this text of the rule.
Therefore I will not take the self-ratification of these reports into
account.
However, I would like to point the interested reader to my first proto
judgement [0] and the ensuing discussion. I wrote that judgement before
I realized that D. Margaux's attempt to ratify without objection failed,
and it contains my opinion that when the rules refer to past events,
that generally is affected by ratification. The "not taking into account
any events since that time" text is not relevant to that judgement.
5. Judgement
============
As explained in the previous section, I will ignore the
self-ratification of D. Margaux's reports here.
I believe that Aris's attempted imposition of the Cold Hand of Justice
by levying a fine (2019-05-26 22:43 message) met the requirements of
Rule 2557, so it remains only to check that it does not run afoul of any
of the conditions in Rule 2531 ("Any attempt to levy a fine is
INEFFECTIVE if...").
Condition 1 of Rule 2531:
The attempt in Aris's message included the value the fine (2 blots) and
the name of the person being fined (D. Margaux). The sentence performing
the action did not specify the specific reason for the fine (message is
copied earlier: "I act on behalf of D. Margaux to impose..."). However,
Aris states the message earlier in the same message "...the information
in the report was inaccurate" which is part of eir attempt, so Condition
1 does not trigger.
Conditions 2 and 3 of Rule 2531:
The officer reports were false at the time they were published. For
example, The Astronomor's 2019-03-05 weekly report states that many
players own Spaceships, and that part of the report has long since
self-ratified (under Rule 2166), but D. Margaux's report claims no
Spaceships exist.
Therefore, ignoring the ratification of the more recent reports,
D. Margaux did commit a rule-breaking action, so these two conditions do
not apply.
Conditions 4 through 8 are straightforward.
Therefore, assuming D. Margaux's reports never self-ratified, the
attempted imposition was EFFECTIVE.
I cannot find evidence that D. Margaux expunged any blots after the fine
was levied, so D. Margaux still has at least 2 blots.
I judge CFJ 3726 TRUE.
I judge CFJ 3727 TRUE.
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