The below CFJ is 4025. I assign it to Janet.
status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#4025
=============================== CFJ 4025 ===============================
In G's investigation, G violated Rule 2125 and interpreted the
rules as proscribing an unregulated action.
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Caller: 4st
Judge: Janet
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History:
Called by 4st: 04 May 2023 21:04:40
Assigned to Janet: [now]
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Caller's Arguments:
Arguments FOR: Basically, this depends on whether I was found guilty of
violating No Faking. If I was not, then G has interpreted the rules to
proscribe the collection of taxes as referee.
Arguments AGAINST: Similarly, if I am guilty, then no violation has
occurred.
Caller's Evidence:
On Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 2:05 PM Kerim Aydin via agora-business wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 1:55 AM Forest Sweeney wrote:
> >
> > Under penalty of no faking, as Referee, I do the following game action
> > for each active player:
> > I collect that player's taxes that are owed to the office of Referee.
> > (The active players being 4st, Aspen, G.,Janet, Murphy, Yachay, ais523,
> > cuddlybanana, juan, nix, and snail.)
> >
> > Please make any disputes about this individually, as taxes are done on a
> > case by case basis.
>
> The above public statement by 4st was noted by Yachary as a violation
> of rule 2471 (No Faking). As 4st is the Referee, the Arbitor is the
> Investigator.
>
> I investigate as follows:
>
> The alleged violation was not merely an assertion that taxes were owed
> by certain parties. It was an assertion that taxes were owed as part
> of the official abilities and/or duties of the Referee. If a
> statement about taxes had been made to BUS, without reference to the
> Referee, it *might* be defensible (depending on context) to say "I was
> talking about my own private unregulated taxes which exist in my head
> but happen to be 0". But in this case, the clear "as Referee, I do
> the following game actions" and context of sending to OFF makes the
> assertion that this is part of the referee's official position a core
> part of the statement. This is a direct falsehood. It is not
> reasonable to claim that those duties were part of some kind of
> "unregulated yet official" task because that doesn't make sense -
> claiming to be acting "as Referee" to levy taxes is essentially
> synonymous with claiming that the taxes are a regulated or required
> thing, which is a lie. It is also not a reasonable defense to say "I
> never actually *said explicitly* that this was a referee duty" - the
> implication contained in the composition of the statement is suitably
> strong to (falsely) imply the connection with the office.
>
> Further, I'll state for the record that I was (momentarily) fooled.
> Not to the point of thinking I owed taxes, but my thought process went
> "did I miss a proposal? a pledge or contract about referee's duties?
> or is a mousetrap scam maybe coming?" Had there been no subsequent
> comments, I might have searched my Agoran emails for "tax" before
> concluding that no such taxes exist, and I still would have been
> suspicious of a hidden mousetrap. As it is, I depended on a statement
> by Yachary, who stated that they also had to "review the rules" before
> concluding falsehood. So between myself and Yachary, there is
> sufficient to find that the statement was misleading enough to be a
> violation of the cited rule.
>
> This violation has a (default) class of 2. The fact that the
> defendant revealed the situation right away is somewhat mitigating,
> while using the guise of an official position is somewhat aggravating.
> Balancing these, I conclude this investigation by specifying 2 blots
> as the penalty.
>
> As a final comment, I'll note that, even if the officer-part of this
> were left out, the mention of taxes would not necessarily be harmless
> - saying " gee I was talking about my private unregulated taxes" is
> not *necessarily* a sufficient defense - as I stated above, it depends
> on context. On one hand, we don't want to penalize fun and silly
> comments (like "I floop the doop" or whatever). But the flipside is
> that before No Faking existed, these kinds of fakeries were a bit
> problematic, and occasionally used to genuinely fool people - maybe
> not fooling them to think the taxes exist, but at least fooling them
> enough to spend time and energy worrying about mousetraps and the
> like, that a relationship between parties existed, or that someone was
> selling a newbie a proverbial Brooklyn Bridge by trying to get them to
> pay taxes. Neutering No Faking by allowing that sort of defense would
> not be for the good of the game.
>
> Rule cited:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Rule 2471/3 (Power=1)
> No Faking
>
> A person SHALL NOT make a public statement that is a lie.
>
> A public statement is falsy if any of the following was true at
> the time of publication:
> * The statement was not true and the author knew or should have
> known that it was not true.
> * The author believed the statement to be not true.
>
> A public statement is a lie if it is falsy and any of the
> following is true:
> * The author made the statement with intent to mislead.
> * The author, in the same message, declared the statement to be
> made "under penalty of No Faking" (or similar).
>
> For the purposes of this rule, an attempt to perform an action by
> publishing certain text constitutes an implicit statement that the
> action was EFFECTIVE.
>
> Merely quoting a statement or attempt does not constitute making
> it for the purposes of this rule. Any disclaimer, conditional
> clause, or other qualifier attached to a statement or attempt
> constitutes part of the statement or attempt for the purposes of
> this rule; the truth or falsity of the whole is what is
> significant.
>
> The above notwithstanding, a formal announcement of intent is
> never a lie.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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