status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#4021
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 4021 ===============================
Yachay owns the Hot Potato stone.
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Caller: snail
Barred: nix
Judge: G.
Judgement: FALSE
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History:
Called by snail: 09 Apr 2023 20:40:20
Assigned to G.: 10 Apr 2023 16:02:37
Judged FALSE by G.: 10 Apr 2023 17:10:32
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Caller's Arguments:
Arguments for TRUE:
Snail, Janet, and nix all tied for highest modified stone rockiness at the
end of the week, so the following rule text applied:
In a tie, the stone
specified by the tied player who reached first is transferred to
em.
snail was the player that "reached first", since e was the first player to
ever reach (though it was for the Score Stone), so the Hot Potato stone is
transferred to em, as e reached for it the previous week, and the previous
week's stone specifications are what are referred to by "stone specified."
Complications may arise if you consider the sentence before this:
At the beginning of each week, the stone specified by the player
with the highest Modified Rockiness that reached for a stone in
the previous week is transferred to em.
but it seems to merely supply the context under which "stone specified",
"in a tie", and "tied player" is to be defined. "Reaching" is defined in a
separate paragraph:
Once a week each player CAN "reach" for a specified stone owned by
Agora by announcement.
It is worth determining what "in a tie", "stone specified", and "reached
first" each mean.
Also note that "When interpreting and applying the rules, the text of the
rules takes precedence."
It seems pretty clear to me that when the rules say "reached first" it
refers to the player that took the reaching game action first, among the
relevant players, generally, and not specifically "in the previous week"
as others may argue, as that wording isn't present in the text.
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Gratuitous Arguments by nix:
First, the text itself is as follows:
At the beginning of each week, the stone specified by the player
with the highest Modified Rockiness that reached for a stone in
the previous week is transferred to em. In a tie, the stone
specified by the tied player who reached first is transferred to
em. When a player receives a stone in this way, eir Base Rockiness
is set to 0.
The immediately relevant sentence is "In a tie, the stone specified by
the tied player who reached first is transferred to em." "In a tie"
specifies a context, and as an adverbial phrase can be moved around.
It seems that snail is interpretting it as "The stone specified by the
tied player who reached first is transferred to em in a tie."
It can also be read as "The stone specified by the tied player who
reached first in a tie is transferred to em."
Now, I'll grant that each reading is equally likely if we have no
context. The first sentence of the paragraph provides the context of a
weekly reach, which favors the second reading.
However, even if we ignore that context, we have two equally textually
supported readings. It'd then come down to our Four Factors. There's no
precedent or previous gameplay that disagrees with either reading.
There's a clear "best interest of the game" to make it play as it is
intended, and not give a player a permanent advantage. "Common sense"
also seems to favor the reading that is more fair.
Thus, while both readings might be plausible, only one is supportable by
our judicial tradition.
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Caller's response to gratuitous arguments by nix:
This assertion deserves skepticism. Moving the phrase around changes the
meaning of the sentence. It may be fine for "When X, Y happens." meaning
the same as "Y happens when X." But the sentence is more complicated. When
X happens, the Y specified by Z that is a part of X is W. This is the same
as "The Y specified by Z is W, when X." but not the same as "The Y
specified by (Z when X) is W" or even "The (Y when X) specified by Z is W"
or "The Y specified by Z is (W when X)" . To be clear, the difference here
is that the adverbial phrase (when X) applies to the whole subsequent
clause when it is seperated at the start, or the whole preceding clause
when at the end, but when situated in the middle, it only modifies one part
of the clause, causing a different meaning.
Applying this to the wording of "The stone specified by the tied player who
reached first is transferred to em." we have a lot of candidates for
modification by "in a tie". What exactly does "in a tie" mean? Given this
action being modified is the transfer of a stone, an instantaneous action,
this whole phrase has to have an "instant" it occurs. So "in a tie" means
"at the instant of a tie". The possible places to apply this, as far as I
can tell, are here:
The stone (in a tie) specified (in a tie) by the tied (in a tie) player (in
a tie) who reached (in a tie) first (in a tie) is transferred (in a tie) to
em (in a tie).
"In a tie" applies to the entire phrase, but some of these applications are
a bit tricky to work out. We have to use context for that.
The stone (in a tie) specified (in a tie): here the stone can't have been
specified at the same instant as the tie, as in the specify action could
not have occurred there, but we can instead interpret it as "action that is
considered, at the time of the tie, to be a specification". The stone (in
a tie) part works similarly: "things that are stones at the instant of the
tie".
So we have "The stone specified by the tied (in a tie) player (in a tie)":
the player (in a tie) part can be understood as "thing that is a player at
the instant of the tie", and the "tied (in a tie)" means a player that is
tied at the instant of the tie, "tied" here referring back to "highest"
condition from the previous rule sentence.
So we have "The stone specified by the tied player who reached (in a tie)
first (in a tie)": reaching doesn't occur at the instant of the tie, so we
instead evaluate this as "action that was a reach at the time". "First (at
the instant of the tie)" seems a bit of an oxymoron, but we can again let
it mean "reach that is considered First at the instant of the tie".
Everything here may be an overanalysis, but this is the key part: "in a
tie" is just an instantaneous time marker, not a time period marker. To
read this as "The reach that occurred earliest in the previous week" has no
textual basis compared to "the reach that occurred earliest", as "in a tie"
does not refer to the previous week at all, it only refers to an instant.
That is, "reached first (in a tie)" cannot mean "reached first (in the
previous week).
transferred (in a tie) makes sense as a transfer occurring at the instant
of the tie.
em (in a tie) just means the (the tied (in a tie) player (in a tie)) again,
or rather, whatever (em) refers to at the instant of the tie.
The notion that you can retain the meaning of the sentence while moving
around the starting adverbial phrase, and make it only apply to part of the
sentence, fails to consider that doing so would rob other parts of the
sentence of their deserved modification. Even if it was fine to do, moving
it to two specific spots out of the 8 i mention (of which there may be
more) seems an insufficient exploration of the 8^2 possible combinations of
which spots to apply (in a tie).
Furthermore, none of these combinations could even result in "reached
first" referring to only the last week, as it could only be modified by "in
a tie" which refers to a specific instant, as is required of it for the
transfer to occur at that instant.
I have a feeling my reasoning here has some flaw i can't identify, and of
course it's subjective, but I already wrote it all out and would rather not
waste that.
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Judge G.'s Arguments:
[For future reference, "TRUE" means that snail obtained the Hot Potato
due to reach, and then it was transferred to Yachay due to being
wielded by snail.]
The rule paragraph in question is written reasonably cleanly and
concisely. The fact that "reached first" is missing an object (a
specified stone) leads the reader to look for context, and even a
moron in a hurry (like the judge of this case) could see that the
context is supplied by the preceding sentence - as the "tie" clearly
refers to the "highest" in the previous sentence, the "reached first"
clearly, and in nearly-parallel construction, applies to the reaches
"in the previous week" in that same sentence. No amount of Agoran
grammatic sophistry can take away from the plain and obvious
common-sense intended meaning in that paragraph; further, it is not in
the best interests of the game to force the rules-writers to
constantly expand the level of rules-overspecification to defend
against motivated readings, in situations where such plain and obvious
contextual usage suffice.
This judge finds FALSE.
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