status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3775
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 3775 ===============================
Ratifying the SLR also ratifies the fact that no other Rules
(other than those in the ratified SLR) exist.
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Caller: G.
Judge: Falsifian
Judgement: TRUE
==========================================================================
History:
Called by G.: 28 Sep 2019 16:46:47
Assigned to Trigon: 04 Oct 2019 18:13:04
Trigon Recused: 20 Oct 2019 07:35:56
Assigned to Falsifian: 20 Oct 2019 07:35:56
Judged TRUE by Falsifian: 27 Oct 2019 00:51:17
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Caller's Arguments:
By R1681, the SLR is a format of the ruleset:
> The Short Logical Ruleset (SLR) is a format of the ruleset.
By R1051, it is also part of the Rulekeepor's Weekly Report:
> The Rulekeepor's Weekly report includes the Short Logical Ruleset.
In the rules, "the ruleset" is not explicitly defined, but a common
definition would be "the set of all rules".
So does ratifying the SLR ratify the implication that there are no other
rules (i.e. that the ratified set is complete)? Note that in some types
of reports we explicitly handle/cover missing values, e.g. in R2162 for
switches:
> a public document
> purporting to be this portion of that officer's report is
> self-ratifying, and implies that other instances are at their
> default value.
We don't have text like that for the SLR/the ruleset.
If it's useful, here's how Proposal 8175 (adopted 08-May-2019) phrased the
last SLR ratification:
> ID: 8175
> Title: SLR Ratification
> Adoption index: 3.0
> Author: Aris
> Co-authors:
>
>
> Ratify the Short Logical Ruleset published on the 24th of February, 2019,
> available here [1].
>
> [1]
> https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-official/2019-February/012797.html
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Judge Falsifian's Evidence:
== Background ==
* In a discussion about Trigon's proto-proposal "Interesting Chambers
v2", Jason Cobb asks: when a rule is repealed, does that count as an
amendment for the purpose of R1586? [0]
* twg argues that repealing a rule is an amendment to the ruleset [1],
leading to discussion about what the Ruleset is.
* Shortly after, G. calls this CFJ.
Publicly accessible links:
[0] https://www.mail-archive.com/agora-discussion@agoranomic.org/msg48110.html
[1] https://www.mail-archive.com/agora-discussion@agoranomic.org/msg48113.html
Subscriber-only links, included for those who prefer, and in case the
other links break:
[0]
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2019-September/055535.html
[1]
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2019-September/055538.html
Some related discussion between ais523 and G.:
ais523:
> When we define "ruleset" in the case of FLR/SLR, they're more like
> reports than sets of rules; it's easy enough to define that some
> information should be omitted from a report without causing that
> information to cease to exist. Thus, the usage of "ruleset" as the set
> of all rules separate from that might not be supported by our
> definitions.
G.:
> Actually, we currently define the FLR and SLR in R1681 as "formats" of
> "the ruleset" where "the ruleset" is nowhere defined:
> > The Short Logical Ruleset (SLR) is a format of the ruleset.
> > The Full Logical Ruleset (FLR) is a format of the ruleset.
> then the SLR and FLR are defined in R1051 as being "included" in weekly and
> monthly reports:
> > The Rulekeepor's Weekly report includes the Short Logical Ruleset.
> > The Rulekeepor's Monthly report includes the Full Logical Ruleset.
>
> But yes, this depends on assuming, in the absence of an explicit
> definition, that "the ruleset" in R1681 and R1030 is simply shorthand
> for "the set of all rules". (is there another common definition that
> makes sense?)
ais523:
> For me, the natural reading is "a report about what rules exist". You'd
> expect that to contain all the rules, but can imagine an unreported
> rule.
>
> A simple way to see that it isn't the same thing as the set of all
> rules is that the FLR contains things like summaries of past
> judgements, which aren't rules (rather, they're guidelines to
> interpreting the rules). For the FLR to be a format of a/the ruleset,
> that implies that a/the ruleset must contain things that aren't rules.
G.:
> I read that easily as meaning that those extra things are part of the
> "format" around the ruleset.
Gratuitous argument from D. Margaux:
> My 2 cents: I believe the answer to this is TRUE.
>
> I think game custom provides that the Ruleset is the
> set-of-all-rules. I am not sure what the alternative definition could
> be. There’s no reason for the Ruleset to be a subset-of-all-rules, and
> we wouldn’t have any principled way to discern which rules are included
> in that Ruleset and which aren’t.
>
> If the Ruleset is the set-of-all-rules, then ratifying the Ruleset
> would “modif[y]” the “gamestate” to what“what it would be if, at the
> time the [Short Logical Ruleset] was published, the gamestate had been
> minimally modified to make the ratified [Short Logical Ruleset] as true
> and accurate as possible.”
>
> I think that would imply that the gamestate is modified such that the
> SLR would truly and accurately represent the set-of-all-rules, with the
> implication that any rule not in the ratified SLR would cease to exist.
Judge Falsifian's Arguments:
The rules don't define exactly what the "ruleset" is. The common-sense
definition, supported by game custom, is that it is the set of Agora's
rules. For the most part, the way the rules use this term is consistent
with this definition. Here's a somewhat arbitrary example:
> A player qualifies for a White Ribbon if e has never
> previously owned a White Ribbon (including under previous
> rulesets).
It is obvious that the author of this text, unless e was being sneaky,
intended "previous rulesets" to mean something like "the complete set
of Agora's rules at times in the past". A ruleset wouldn't be very
useful if it excluded some rules. Most of the other occurrences of
"ruleset" in Agora's rules similarly make the most sense if we
interpret ruleset to mean the set of Agora's rules.
ais523 casts doubt on this interpretation by pointing out that the
Short and Full Logical Rulesets (SLR and FLR) are defined like reports
rather than sets of rules. E points out in particular that the Full
Logical Ruleset includes things that aren't rules.
One possible resolution to the question is to accept G.'s point of view
that the Short and Full Logical Rulesets are ways to format a separate
entity called the "ruleset", and the extra information included in the
Full Logical Ruleset is part of the formatting, and not the
ruleset. Under this interpretation, we can disregard ais523's argument.
If we don't accept G.'s interpretation, the common-sense and game
custom arguments still apply. R1681 does not define what a ruleset is
to begin with, only the distinguishing features of the Short and Full
Logical Rulesets. R1681 does not say which rules are included in the
ruleset, and why should it? The default common-sense meaning is that it
is all the rules.
For completeness, I'll address one more argument from G.:
----
G. says "in some types of reports we explicitly handle/cover missing
values", quoting R2162's text that includes "...implies that other
instances are at their default value".
This raises the question: if the rules say this explicitly for some
types of report but not others, does that mean ratification of those
other types of report (including Short Logical Rulesets) do not imply
anything about missing values?
I looked (by searching the FLR for "report") for other examples of
rules about missing values in reports. Besides R2162, I found the
following three places:
R1607:
> The Promotor's report includes a list of all proposals in the
> Proposal Pool, along with their text and attributes. This portion
> of a public document purporting to be a Promotor's report is
> self-ratifying.
R2166:
> The recordkeepor of a class of assets is the entity (if any)
> defined as such by, and bound by, its backing document. That
> entity's report includes a list of all instances of that class and
> their owners. This portion of that entity's report is
> self-ratifying.
R2379:
> If the rules define a report as including a list, then while that
> list is empty, that report includes the fact that it is empty.
The first two simply use the word "all". Since the natural definition
of "ruleset" is the set of Agora's rules, meaning all of them, I find
that R1051's text "The Rulekeepor's Weekly report includes the Short
Logical Ruleset." is just as effective as those first two examples.
----
Since the Short Logical Ruleset includes the set of all of Agora's
rules, ratifying it in particular ratifies that the rules listed
constitute the set of all of Agora's rules. I judge CFJ 3775 TRUE.
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