status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3868
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 3868 ===============================
The above-quoted message created an Agoran proposal.
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Caller: ais523
Judge: ATMunn
Judgement: FALSE
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History:
Called by ais523: 12 Jul 2020 16:25:56
Assigned to ATMunn: 16 Jul 2020 21:48:49
Judged FALSE by ATMunn: 17 Jul 2020 16:26:50
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Caller's Evidence: (The above-quoted message):
On Sun, 2020-07-12 at 16:02 +0000, Falsifian via agora-business wrote:
> I submit the following Diplonomic Proposal, titled "Judicial Veto":
>
> {
> To the end of Rule 8, append: "If enacting a proposal would
> interfere
> with the Judge's ability to ensure the smooth running of the game in
> accordance with these rules, then e NEED NOT enact that proposal, so
> long as e publishes an explanation of the problem, and this
> exception
> overrides any requirement for em to enact that proposal."
> }
>
> (This also gives the Judge a way out if a proposal would make eir
> job very difficult.)
Caller's Arguments:
The quoted body of text appears to satisfy the requirements
to be a proposal in the Agoran sense, and its author has stated that e
is submitting it as a proposal; it was sent to a public forum, thus
appears to meet the requirements for acting by announcement (the
standard for creating a proposal). It is stated to be a Diplonomic
Proposal; however, I don't see any reason why a Diplonomic Proposal
can't also be an Agoran proposal, as this proposal appears to match
both sets of requirements.
Weighing against this is the fact that it obviously wasn't intended to
create an Agoran proposal. Is that relevant, when establishing whether
an action by announcement has occurred?
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Judge ATMunn's Arguments:
Let's first examine the rules involved here. The main rule involved is
Rule 2350, "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 coauthors (which must be persons other than the
author).
* An adoption index.
* A chamber to which the proposal shall be assigned upon its
creation.
By this definition, the only thing required for a proposal to be a valid
proposal is for it to have a body of text. Other attributes can be
added, but are not mandatory. The message in question clearly fulfils
the definition of a proposal. The true question is: Did Falsifian
"create a proposal by announcement"?
Let us return to our old friend, Rule 478.
Where the rules define an action that a person CAN perform "by
announcement", that person performs that action by unambiguously
and clearly specifying the action and announcing that e performs
it.
This is where the argument for TRUE falls apart. While I will not go
in-depth on the word "clearly", as I have done that previously and am
quite frankly tired of the word, I think that "unambiguously" is the key
here.
To better understand what is going on here, let us substitute the
definition of "by announcement" from Rule 478 into Rule 2350. Doing so
gives us this:
A player CAN create a proposal by unambiguously and clearly
specifying the action of creating a proposal and announcing that e
performs it, specifying ...
Falsifian did not unambiguously specify the action of creating a
proposal. E did unambiguously specify the action of creating a
Diplonomic proposal. That phrasing does, of course, contain the word
"proposal", but it also contains the word "Diplonomic", and the
Diplnomic rules clearly define a method of creating proposals associated
with Diplonomic. Though neither "Diplonomic proposal" nor "Agoran
proposal" are actually defined, the use of one word or the other clearly
designates which sense of "proposal" is to be used.
The fact that a CFJ was called in the first place indicates that it is
ambiguous as to whether e created a proposal, thereby failing the
definition of "by announcement" in Rule 478, thereby making it not a
proposal.
I judge CFJ 3868 to be FALSE.
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