status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3744 (This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 3744 =============================== There exists a proposal with the title 'It's caused enough trouble already' and with a valid adoption index. ========================================================================== Caller: Jason Cobb Judge: D. Margaux Judgement: TRUE ========================================================================== History: Called by Jason Cobb: 23 Jun 2019 22:07:24 Assigned to D. Margaux: 30 Jun 2019 20:01:57 Judged TRUE by D. Margaux: 01 Jul 2019 00:47:15 Motion for D. Margaux to reconsider: 06 Jul 2019 08:23:08 ========================================================================== Gratuitous Arguments by G.: When you submit a proposal, it is "optional" to include an adoption index (R2350). The default value in R1950 is "none" so that likely means the result (if you submit without specifying at all) is a proposal with "AI = none". If you submit with an invalid (but optional) AI, I'm not at all sure whether it invalidates the proposal creation or sets it at default. For example, in the case of Rule Changes, if you say "Amend Rule XXXX ([Title])", including the [Title] is optional, but if you specify the title incorrectly, precedent holds that it invalidates the whole rule change as overly ambiguous, though that relies on the "Any ambiguity..." clause in R105 specific to Rule Changes. Falsifian specified an (invalid) AI of 0.5 when submitting the proposal in question. So for more general by-announcement actions, does specifying an invalid but optional parameter invalidate the whole process? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gratuitous Evidence by G.: On 6/23/2019 9:08 AM, James Cook wrote to agora-business:
I create a proposal with the following attributes and text: Title: It's caused enough trouble already Adoption index: 0.5 Co-authors: none (empty list) Text: Repeal Rule 2596 (The Ritual).
Rule 2350/11 (Power=3) Proposals A proposal is a type of entity consisting of a body of text and other attributes. A player CAN create a proposal by announcement, specifying its text and optionally specifying any of the following attributes: * An associated title. * A list of co-authors (which must be persons other than the author). * An adoption index. Creating a proposal adds it to the Proposal Pool. Once a proposal is created, neither its text nor any of the aforementioned attributes can be changed. [...] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judge D. Margaux's Arguments: The question in both is, when a player attempts to create a proposal with an invalid adoption index, does the attempt fail or does the AI retain its default value? I think it retains its default value. A player can create a proposal "by announcement," if e specifies certain mandatory attributes. The failure to state a valid adoption index does not make the attempted proposal creation INEFFECTIVE, because that attribute is an optional specification. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arguments filed with motion to reconsider, by Aris: I’m strongly tempted to move to reconsider this, and apologize for failing to provide arguments earlier (honestly, I totally forgot about this case). I really don’t think this opinion adequately considers the other sensible possibility: that the proposal fails entirely. To begin with, when someone submits a proposal, they’re performing the action of creating an entity that has certain properties. If creating an entity with the properties specified is impossible, there’s no way for them to do that (the speech act cannot make itself true). This is a very different situation from the one where they leave something blank, and we fill it in with a default value. There, the person is still performing the speech act they wrote out, it’s just that the entity they create also has additional properties. Here, we’re actually rewriting an ineffective speech act to turn it into an effective one, which feels deeply disturbing and totally unlike the way Agora speech acts normally work. Another problem is that, since we’re rewriting what someone said, we break referential transparency and bump into other counter-intuitive behavior. If someone says “I submit a proposal with properties X, Y, and Z, and AI 0.5. I retract that proposal.”, no proposal would result under this theory. However, if we substituted the variable “that”, we get “I submit a proposal with properties X, Y, and Z, and AI 0.5. I retract the proposal with properties X, Y, and Z, and AI 0.5.” However, this leads to a proposal still existing, since there is no proposal with AI 0.5, unless it’s proposed that we rewrite that sentence too, which makes even less sense. To be clear, I’m not saying that Agora always follows referential transparency, just that we need a principled reason to break it and this really doesn’t feel like one. In short, I think it’s by far the cleanest if we read statements literally and don’t allow the defaulting of invalid values. I’d like to know if others think I could have a point, and if they do I’ll file a motion (unless the judge cares to self-file one). I really think their are some counter-arguments here that deserve consideration, and would go so far as to suggest that if the current interpretation is sustained we might want to legislate to make sure that announcements are read literally. ==========================================================================