status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#4025
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== 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
Judgement: FALSE
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History:
Called by 4st: 04 May 2023 21:04:40
Assigned to Janet: 08 May 2023 16:54:24
Judged FALSE by Janet: 13 May 2023 00:22:49
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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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Judge Janet's Arguments:
In CFJ 3403, H. Judge Tiger found that "interpreting the rules", for the
purpose of this clause in Rule 2125 is "reading the rules with the
expressed purpose of finding out what thy mean, and communicating this
through a well-defined, 'legal', process", rather than merely "offering
up 'I'd say it can be read to mean this'". This judgement was made in
light of Rule 478's former explicit protection of freedom of speech, but
I find that this holding remains good law and is consistent with the
current Rules.
Rule 2478/24 does not explicitly task the investigator of an infraction
with interpreting the Rules or even determining whether an infraction
has occurred at all. Instead, it is deliberately left to be platonically
determined whether the initial noting succeeded (as noting an infraction
can only succeed if an infraction has actually occurred). As such, I
find that, regardless of the comments that G. made during eir
investigation, e was not "interpreting the rules" for the purpose of
Rule 2125. Thus, no infraction could have been committed.
Judged FALSE.
Judge Janet's Evidence:
CFJ 3403: http://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/?3403
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Rule 2125/13 (Power=3)
Regulated Actions
An action is regulated if: (1) the Rules limit, allow, enable, or
permit its performance; (2) the Rules describe the circumstances
under which the action would succeed or fail; or (3) the action
would, as part of its effect, modify information for which some
player is required to be a recordkeepor.
A Regulated Action CAN only be performed as described by the
Rules, and only using the methods explicitly specified in the
Rules for performing the given action. The Rules SHALL NOT be
interpreted so as to proscribe unregulated actions.
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Rule 2478/24 (Power=1.7)
Justice
An Infraction is a violation of a rule. The person who committed
an infraction is its infracter.
The Investigator for an infraction is the Referee unless e is the
infracter. Otherwise, it is the Arbitor.
The Class of an infraction is 2 unless a rule specifies a
different Class for it.
The Base of an infraction is N, where N is the number of
previously-investigated, unforgiven infractions that have been
committed by the same person in the last 30 days. The previous
notwithstanding, if the base of an infraction would be greater
than its class, the infraction's base is equal to its class.
Within 14 days of an infraction being committed, the Investigator
CAN investigate the infraction by announcement, specifying a
number of blots between the Base and the Class of the infraction,
inclusive. When e does so, that many blots are created in the
possession of the infracter.
The previous notwithstanding, an Investigator CANNOT investigate
an infraction that has already been investigated or forgiven. The
Investigator of a noted, unforgiven infraction SHALL investigate
the infraction in a timely manner after it has been noted;
failure to do so is the Class N crime of Favoritism, where N is
equal to the Class of the noted infraction.
A player CAN, by announcement, "note" an unforgiven infraction
committed by any other player in the last 7 days, specifying the
incident and the rule it violates (or name of the Infraction if
it has one).
The Referee's weekly report contains a list of noted and
investigated Infractions committed in the previous week.
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