Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Owen Jacobson]

> I submit the following proposal:
> 
> Title: Caseload

I withdraw the proposal “Caseload”.

Thanks for the interesting discussion!

-o




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Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Owen Jacobson]

On Jun 29, 2017, at 12:10 PM, Publius Scribonius Scholasticus 
 wrote:

> 1 - Really? Okay then, I point my finger at ais523 for the reasons stated 
> before.


Someone pointed out that this is now overdue. As such, I point the finger at 
myself, for failing to fulfil my duties as investigator under Rule 2478 
(“Vigilante Justice”).

As I can see no reason any card other than a Green Card could have been 
appropriate for the original alleged infraction, I consider my own infraction 
to be minor and inconsequential, and issue myself a Green Card.

I submit the following proposal:

Title: Caseload
AI: 2
{{{

Amend rule 991 (“Calls for Judgement”) and remove the sentence

The Arbitor SHALL assign judges over time such that all interested players 
have reasonably equal opportunities to judge.
}}}

An Arbitor who unreasonably favours specific judges or denies interested 
parties an opportunity to participate can be replaced in multiple ways without 
resorting to Cards.

-o



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Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Aris Merchant]

You're misconstruing what e said. E said that eir assignments _did_
give everyone a "reasonably equal" opportunity to judge.  I any case,
I object to the finger pointing (not that objecting does anything). I
further support the intent to enter the judgment into Moot, and do so.

-Aris

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 9:21 AM, Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
 wrote:
> Additionally, to this finger-pointing and my finger-pointing, I add my 
> observation that per ais523’s own word, the assignment was not fair to the 
> Arbiter and therefore was a violation of Rule 991.
> 
> Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
> p.scribonius.scholasti...@gmail.com
>
>
>
>> On Jun 29, 2017, at 9:18 AM, CuddleBeam  wrote:
>>
>> >2 - I disagree with your conjecture - those CFJ assignments were
>> >reasonable and made the game flow better
>>
>> I agree with that they made the game flow better but I don't see how that 
>> supercedes word of law. Our laws are just a bit junk for these kind of cases 
>> of making the game flow better - but that doesn't remove that e has violated 
>> them.
>>
>> I support PSS's moot. (While inconvenient for the flow gameplay, I find what 
>> PSS has exposed to be true.)
>>
>> I also Point a Finger at ais523 for an infraction of "interested players 
>> have reasonably equal opportunities to judge". (I wouldn't agree with 
>> something as severe as a Pink Slip though, but I feel like there has been an 
>> infraction of our (unfortunately obtrusive for this case) laws)
>

Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Publius Scribonius Scholasticus]

Additionally, to this finger-pointing and my finger-pointing, I add my 
observation that per ais523’s own word, the assignment was not fair to the 
Arbiter and therefore was a violation of Rule 991.

Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
p.scribonius.scholasti...@gmail.com



> On Jun 29, 2017, at 9:18 AM, CuddleBeam  wrote:
> 
> >2 - I disagree with your conjecture - those CFJ assignments were
> >reasonable and made the game flow better
> 
> I agree with that they made the game flow better but I don't see how that 
> supercedes word of law. Our laws are just a bit junk for these kind of cases 
> of making the game flow better - but that doesn't remove that e has violated 
> them.
> 
> I support PSS's moot. (While inconvenient for the flow gameplay, I find what 
> PSS has exposed to be true.)
> 
> I also Point a Finger at ais523 for an infraction of "interested players have 
> reasonably equal opportunities to judge". (I wouldn't agree with something as 
> severe as a Pink Slip though, but I feel like there has been an infraction of 
> our (unfortunately obtrusive for this case) laws)



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Re: Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[CuddleBeam]

>2 - I disagree with your conjecture - those CFJ assignments were

>reasonable and made the game flow better


I agree with that they made the game flow better but I don't see how
that supercedes word of law. Our laws are just a bit junk for these
kind of cases of making the game flow better - but that doesn't remove
that e has violated them.


I support PSS's moot. (While inconvenient for the flow gameplay, I
find what PSS has exposed to be true.)


I also Point a Finger at ais523 for an infraction of "interested
players have reasonably equal opportunities to judge". (I wouldn't
agree with something as severe as a Pink Slip though, but I feel like
there has been an infraction of our (unfortunately obtrusive for this
case) laws)

Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Alex Smith]

On Thu, 2017-06-29 at 08:58 -0700, Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
wrote:
> I issue a Pink Slip to ais523 for abuse of his office as Arbiter. He
> had unduly assigned CFJs to himself in an inequitable manner, which
> has not assigned judgements in such a way that "interested players
> have reasonably equal opportunities to judge.”, as required by Rule
> 991.

This is actually the exact opposite of the situation the rule was
envisaged for.

"Reasonably equal opportunities to judge" requires giving each judge
approximately the same number of CFJs over time. On that reasoning, the
only eligible judges were me, omd, and V.J. Rada. I felt that assigning
the CFJs to myself would be simplest as there was uncertainty over
their quantity and existence, and being the Arbitor, I would be able to
number them as soon as I was sure whether they existed.

Rule 991 also explicitly gives the Arbitor permission to make biased
judge assignments, in terms of trying to influence the outcome of the
CFJ. I haven't used this and don't intend to use it, but even if I were
biased in the assignment of judges, that wouldn't technically be an
abuse of the office.

-- 
ais523

Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Publius Scribonius Scholasticus]

1 - Really? Okay then, I point my finger at ais523 for the reasons stated 
before.

2 - Game flow is not a consideration that the rules allow for.

3 - That is completely irrelevant it requires support not lack of objection.

Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
p.scribonius.scholasti...@gmail.com



> On Jun 29, 2017, at 9:05 AM, Quazie  wrote:
> 
> 1 - you can't assign pink slips - only the Referee can
> 2 - I disagree with your conjecture - those CFJ assignments were reasonable 
> and made the game flow better
> 3 - I object to your moot intent
> 
> On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 08:58 Publius Scribonius Scholasticus 
>  wrote:
> I hereby intend to render judgement 3534 moot.
> 
> I issue a Pink Slip to ais523 for abuse of his office as Arbiter. He had 
> unduly assigned CFJs to himself in an inequitable manner, which has not 
> assigned judgements in such a way that "interested players have reasonably 
> equal opportunities to judge.”, as required by Rule 991.
> 
> Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
> p.scribonius.scholasti...@gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> > On Jun 29, 2017, at 3:57 AM, Alex Smith  wrote:
> >
> > Judge's evidence on CFJs 3534/3535:
> > {{{
> > On Wed, 2017-06-28 at 16:16 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> >> I call for judgement on the following statement : أدعو إلى إصدار حكم بشأن 
> >> البيان التالي
> >
> > The source of the body for the above-quoted message is (with bytes
> > outside the ASCII range replaced by hexadecimal numbers in angle
> > brackets):
> >
> >>   This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text,
> >>   while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
> >>
> >> ---1903399159-33069213-1498691760=:22422
> >> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-6
> >> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I call for judgement on the following statement :  
> >> 
> >>  
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---1903399159-33069213-1498691760=:22422--
> > }}}
> >
> > Judge's arguments on CFJs 3534/3535:
> > {{{
> > The arguments so far have hinged on the message in question being
> > ambiguous, but is that really the case? I believe that, given the
> > method via which it was sent, the original message cannot reasonably be
> > interpreted as being in Arabic.
> >
> > What's notable here is that an encoding of text can convey the meaning
> > of the text in two different ways; either using a visual ordering, in
> > which the sequence of bytes is corresponds to the positions of the
> > individual characters on the page; or a logical ordering, in which the
> > sequence of bytes corresponds to the order in which the characters they
> > represent have meaning (i.e. bytes that appear earlier in the byte
> > stream correspond to letters closer to the start of words, words closer
> > to the start of sentences, and so on). A visual ordering would not help
> > resolve the ambiguity in respect to the CFJ. A logical ordering would,
> > though, as the bytes are conveying not only the appearance of the text
> > in this case, but also the intended reading order.
> >
> > The standard referenced in the message for the understanding of the
> > bytes it contains is ISO-8859-6 (which cannot be obtained from ISO
> > without payment, but Ecma have a standard Ecma-114 which they claim is
> > equivalent). The body of the standard contains no opinion on whether
> > the text it's used to represent is in logical or visual order. However,
> > email clients in practice appear to interpret it as being in logical
> > order; in my client, the bytes , corresponding to the
> > Arabic letters «أ» then «د» then «ع» then «و», are rendered as the
> > Arabic word «أدعو» (in other words, they're rendered right to left, the
> > normal logical order of Arabic, and the opposite order that they appear
> > in the bytestream).
> >
> > The word in question is a real Arabic word, translating to "I invite" /
> > "I call" / "I appeal". If we reverse the order of the letters, to get
> > «دعوأ», this is no longer a real Arabic word, strongly implying that
> > the message was meant to be in logical order; if the message were meant
> > to be in visual order, the Arabic text would therefore have been
> > written backwards (i.e. left to right, when right to left is the
> > language's normal writing order).
> >
> > I can also see how my email client interprets the message by asking it
> > to word-wrap it:
> >
> >> I call for judgement on the following statement : أدعو إلى إصدار حكم
> >> بشأن البيان التالي
> >
> > This word-wrapping is clearly incompatible with an Arabic
> > interpretation of the message, as it would have split the Arabic in
> > half with some English text in the middle.
> >
> > In other words, I'm not seeing any sensible way to interpret the
> > English text as coming "after" the Arabic text. The message itself
> > contains an indication that the Arabic text comes second.
> > }}}
> >
> > I judge CFJ 

Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Quazie]

1 - you can't assign pink slips - only the Referee can
2 - I disagree with your conjecture - those CFJ assignments were reasonable
and made the game flow better
3 - I object to your moot intent

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 08:58 Publius Scribonius Scholasticus <
p.scribonius.scholasti...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> I hereby intend to render judgement 3534 moot.
>
> I issue a Pink Slip to ais523 for abuse of his office as Arbiter. He had
> unduly assigned CFJs to himself in an inequitable manner, which has not
> assigned judgements in such a way that "interested players have reasonably
> equal opportunities to judge.”, as required by Rule 991.
> 
> Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
> p.scribonius.scholasti...@gmail.com
>
>
>
> > On Jun 29, 2017, at 3:57 AM, Alex Smith 
> wrote:
> >
> > Judge's evidence on CFJs 3534/3535:
> > {{{
> > On Wed, 2017-06-28 at 16:16 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> >> I call for judgement on the following statement : أدعو إلى إصدار حكم
> بشأن البيان التالي
> >
> > The source of the body for the above-quoted message is (with bytes
> > outside the ASCII range replaced by hexadecimal numbers in angle
> > brackets):
> >
> >>   This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable
> text,
> >>   while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware
> tools.
> >>
> >> ---1903399159-33069213-1498691760=:22422
> >> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-6
> >> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I call for judgement on the following statement : 
>
>  
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---1903399159-33069213-1498691760=:22422--
> > }}}
> >
> > Judge's arguments on CFJs 3534/3535:
> > {{{
> > The arguments so far have hinged on the message in question being
> > ambiguous, but is that really the case? I believe that, given the
> > method via which it was sent, the original message cannot reasonably be
> > interpreted as being in Arabic.
> >
> > What's notable here is that an encoding of text can convey the meaning
> > of the text in two different ways; either using a visual ordering, in
> > which the sequence of bytes is corresponds to the positions of the
> > individual characters on the page; or a logical ordering, in which the
> > sequence of bytes corresponds to the order in which the characters they
> > represent have meaning (i.e. bytes that appear earlier in the byte
> > stream correspond to letters closer to the start of words, words closer
> > to the start of sentences, and so on). A visual ordering would not help
> > resolve the ambiguity in respect to the CFJ. A logical ordering would,
> > though, as the bytes are conveying not only the appearance of the text
> > in this case, but also the intended reading order.
> >
> > The standard referenced in the message for the understanding of the
> > bytes it contains is ISO-8859-6 (which cannot be obtained from ISO
> > without payment, but Ecma have a standard Ecma-114 which they claim is
> > equivalent). The body of the standard contains no opinion on whether
> > the text it's used to represent is in logical or visual order. However,
> > email clients in practice appear to interpret it as being in logical
> > order; in my client, the bytes , corresponding to the
> > Arabic letters «أ» then «د» then «ع» then «و», are rendered as the
> > Arabic word «أدعو» (in other words, they're rendered right to left, the
> > normal logical order of Arabic, and the opposite order that they appear
> > in the bytestream).
> >
> > The word in question is a real Arabic word, translating to "I invite" /
> > "I call" / "I appeal". If we reverse the order of the letters, to get
> > «دعوأ», this is no longer a real Arabic word, strongly implying that
> > the message was meant to be in logical order; if the message were meant
> > to be in visual order, the Arabic text would therefore have been
> > written backwards (i.e. left to right, when right to left is the
> > language's normal writing order).
> >
> > I can also see how my email client interprets the message by asking it
> > to word-wrap it:
> >
> >> I call for judgement on the following statement : أدعو إلى إصدار حكم
> >> بشأن البيان التالي
> >
> > This word-wrapping is clearly incompatible with an Arabic
> > interpretation of the message, as it would have split the Arabic in
> > half with some English text in the middle.
> >
> > In other words, I'm not seeing any sensible way to interpret the
> > English text as coming "after" the Arabic text. The message itself
> > contains an indication that the Arabic text comes second.
> > }}}
> >
> > I judge CFJ 3534 ("In the below quoted message, a CFJ
> > was initiated on the phrase 'I call for judgement on the following
> > statement'") FALSE, and CFJ 3535 ("In the below quoted message, a CFJ
> > was initiated on the phrase 'أدعو إلى إصدار حكم بشأن البيان التالي'")
> > TRUE.
> >
> > Given that I've now determined the existence of a CFJ in G.'.s original
> > message, I number it CFJ 3536, assign it to 

Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Publius Scribonius Scholasticus]

I hereby intend to render judgement 3534 moot.

I issue a Pink Slip to ais523 for abuse of his office as Arbiter. He had unduly 
assigned CFJs to himself in an inequitable manner, which has not assigned 
judgements in such a way that "interested players have reasonably equal 
opportunities to judge.”, as required by Rule 991.

Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
p.scribonius.scholasti...@gmail.com



> On Jun 29, 2017, at 3:57 AM, Alex Smith  wrote:
> 
> Judge's evidence on CFJs 3534/3535:
> {{{
> On Wed, 2017-06-28 at 16:16 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote:
>> I call for judgement on the following statement : أدعو إلى إصدار حكم بشأن 
>> البيان التالي
> 
> The source of the body for the above-quoted message is (with bytes
> outside the ASCII range replaced by hexadecimal numbers in angle
> brackets):
> 
>>   This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text,
>>   while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
>> 
>> ---1903399159-33069213-1498691760=:22422
>> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-6
>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I call for judgement on the following statement :  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ---1903399159-33069213-1498691760=:22422--
> }}}
> 
> Judge's arguments on CFJs 3534/3535:
> {{{
> The arguments so far have hinged on the message in question being
> ambiguous, but is that really the case? I believe that, given the
> method via which it was sent, the original message cannot reasonably be
> interpreted as being in Arabic.
> 
> What's notable here is that an encoding of text can convey the meaning
> of the text in two different ways; either using a visual ordering, in
> which the sequence of bytes is corresponds to the positions of the
> individual characters on the page; or a logical ordering, in which the
> sequence of bytes corresponds to the order in which the characters they
> represent have meaning (i.e. bytes that appear earlier in the byte
> stream correspond to letters closer to the start of words, words closer
> to the start of sentences, and so on). A visual ordering would not help
> resolve the ambiguity in respect to the CFJ. A logical ordering would,
> though, as the bytes are conveying not only the appearance of the text
> in this case, but also the intended reading order.
> 
> The standard referenced in the message for the understanding of the
> bytes it contains is ISO-8859-6 (which cannot be obtained from ISO
> without payment, but Ecma have a standard Ecma-114 which they claim is
> equivalent). The body of the standard contains no opinion on whether
> the text it's used to represent is in logical or visual order. However,
> email clients in practice appear to interpret it as being in logical
> order; in my client, the bytes , corresponding to the
> Arabic letters «أ» then «د» then «ع» then «و», are rendered as the
> Arabic word «أدعو» (in other words, they're rendered right to left, the
> normal logical order of Arabic, and the opposite order that they appear
> in the bytestream).
> 
> The word in question is a real Arabic word, translating to "I invite" /
> "I call" / "I appeal". If we reverse the order of the letters, to get
> «دعوأ», this is no longer a real Arabic word, strongly implying that
> the message was meant to be in logical order; if the message were meant
> to be in visual order, the Arabic text would therefore have been
> written backwards (i.e. left to right, when right to left is the
> language's normal writing order).
> 
> I can also see how my email client interprets the message by asking it
> to word-wrap it:
> 
>> I call for judgement on the following statement : أدعو إلى إصدار حكم
>> بشأن البيان التالي
> 
> This word-wrapping is clearly incompatible with an Arabic
> interpretation of the message, as it would have split the Arabic in
> half with some English text in the middle.
> 
> In other words, I'm not seeing any sensible way to interpret the
> English text as coming "after" the Arabic text. The message itself
> contains an indication that the Arabic text comes second.
> }}}
> 
> I judge CFJ 3534 ("In the below quoted message, a CFJ
> was initiated on the phrase 'I call for judgement on the following
> statement'") FALSE, and CFJ 3535 ("In the below quoted message, a CFJ
> was initiated on the phrase 'أدعو إلى إصدار حكم بشأن البيان التالي'")
> TRUE.
> 
> Given that I've now determined the existence of a CFJ in G.'.s original
> message, I number it CFJ 3536, assign it to myself if I haven't already
> done so, and judge it DISMISS (it machine-translates to "I call for a
> ruling on the following statement", is clearly intended to mean "I call
> for judgement on the following statement" from context, and it has no
> following statement to refer to, given that it's the last statement in
> the original email).
> 
> --
> ais523
> Judge, CFJs 3534/3535/3536
> Arbitor



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Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Quazie]

Welcome back G. Also - check your dates I think you're off by one?
On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 07:11 Kerim Aydin  wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 29 Jun 2017, Alex Smith wrote:
> > The word in question is a real Arabic word, translating to "I invite" /
> > "I call" / "I appeal". If we reverse the order of the letters, to get
> > «دعوأ», this is no longer a real Arabic word, strongly implying that
> > the message was meant to be in logical order; if the message were meant
> > to be in visual order, the Arabic text would therefore have been
> > written backwards (i.e. left to right, when right to left is the
> > language's normal writing order).
>
> I register.
>
> H. Registrar, the following is a Cantus Cygneus:
>
> For years, Agora has been governed by principles of interpretation,
> including a strong judgment on non-English languages.  That judgement
> was the result of me, years ago, attempting to take a simple and clear
> action in Turkish.  It was rejected wholly.  It was sensible, though
> hard line, and at times others have attempted other languages, I've
> happily referred others to that judgement, and people have accepted it
> and moved on.
>
> Recently, another player registered and began to use Japanese in the
> forum.  I was against it from the beginning, not due to dislike of a
> particular language, but due to those past Agoran customs and the fact
> that we have enough problems with ambiguities in English.  I delivered
> a judgement stating eir nickname wasn't the Japanese characters e was
> using, intending it again to reinforce that old precedent.
>
> It was completely ignored.
>
> Fine, it's just a nickname.  Then, I argued against interpretation of
> contracts in other languages.  Ignored.  I gave in a bit, thinking
> "hey, maybe changing technology means this should be re-evaluated",
> and delivered judgements allowing some minimal use of characters for
> obvious simple actions.  This though went further for the rest of you,
> not only do you bend over backwards to interpret long and nonsensical
> Japanese posts, but now you try to interpret goddamn Neo Akkadian with
> seriousness.
>
> Now, this presents many interpretation problems (of mixing languages),
> so I try to demonstrate some of the issues by mixing two languages in
> an odd way. Ambiguous as per P.S.S.'s arguments?  Maybe, and fine.
> But: ambiguous using language and the written word, say imagining it
> written on paper.  The SAME RESPECT we've given to other languages in
> the last few months.
>
> But I guess we don't extend that respect to Arabic (or in the past,
> Turkish). This result?  It decides to completely ignore the clear and
> simple known precepts of the Arabic language, and decide on some kind
> of byte order.  Why stop there??  Why not say "hey, all this English
> stuff?  It's just ASCII and we can't read numbers!"  No? I guess not.
>
> But hey - this Arabic stuff??  Well, it's not some important language,
> like say Japanese.  Let's just translate it to bytes and ignore the
> meaning, eh?  Completely re-arrange the word order like no native
> speaker, and not even a translation machine, would do, eh?  I guess
> that's fine.  Basic principles of reading with good faith don't apply
> to a language like *that*.  Let's talk about byte order, instead.
>
> Well, 46 75 63 6b 2c 20 66 75 63 6b 20 74 68 69 73 2e.
>
> I consider you folks my friends, and, intended or not, I want you to
> know how this is coming across. I know this is mainly an intellectual
> exercise for us - we like the puzzles of wrestling with translations in
> ancient languages, and figuring out odd logic (like byte stuff) to get
> out of ambiguous or paradoxical situations.  That's all fun, well, and
> good.
>
> So I've really tried to understand the Japanese, but even the signature
> characters just come across to me gibberish - due to the low resolution
> of the characters on the display, I just can't learn it from reading it
> here.  I transliterate that nickname in my head as "Japanese Character
> Guy" every time I see the characters.  It feels exclusionary to me
> (especially as there's others who understand better), and I feel left
> out.
>
> Though I've generally ignored that feeling - not a big deal.  I've even
> spent more time trying to program the CFJ database to accept those
> characters than I have on any other aspect of programming and updating.
>
> And now, here - double exclusion.  There's no similar respect for a
> language I can (to a very slight measure) cope with.
>
> Now, I'm pretty sure you didn't intend to come across this way, and
> thought of this as just another clever logic solution.  And I'm VERY
> sure my sensitivity is in a large part due to current World events. I
> come here to escape, I've never brought politics here (especially not
> Turkish ones) but the last few months in Agora have brought
> Dictatorships, Juntas, and now this unthinking exclusion of treating
> different languages fundamentally 

Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Kerim Aydin]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2017, Alex Smith wrote:
> The word in question is a real Arabic word, translating to "I invite" /
> "I call" / "I appeal". If we reverse the order of the letters, to get
> «دعوأ», this is no longer a real Arabic word, strongly implying that
> the message was meant to be in logical order; if the message were meant
> to be in visual order, the Arabic text would therefore have been
> written backwards (i.e. left to right, when right to left is the
> language's normal writing order).

I register.

H. Registrar, the following is a Cantus Cygneus:

For years, Agora has been governed by principles of interpretation,
including a strong judgment on non-English languages.  That judgement
was the result of me, years ago, attempting to take a simple and clear
action in Turkish.  It was rejected wholly.  It was sensible, though
hard line, and at times others have attempted other languages, I've
happily referred others to that judgement, and people have accepted it
and moved on.

Recently, another player registered and began to use Japanese in the
forum.  I was against it from the beginning, not due to dislike of a
particular language, but due to those past Agoran customs and the fact
that we have enough problems with ambiguities in English.  I delivered
a judgement stating eir nickname wasn't the Japanese characters e was
using, intending it again to reinforce that old precedent.

It was completely ignored.

Fine, it's just a nickname.  Then, I argued against interpretation of
contracts in other languages.  Ignored.  I gave in a bit, thinking
"hey, maybe changing technology means this should be re-evaluated",
and delivered judgements allowing some minimal use of characters for
obvious simple actions.  This though went further for the rest of you,
not only do you bend over backwards to interpret long and nonsensical
Japanese posts, but now you try to interpret goddamn Neo Akkadian with
seriousness.

Now, this presents many interpretation problems (of mixing languages),
so I try to demonstrate some of the issues by mixing two languages in
an odd way. Ambiguous as per P.S.S.'s arguments?  Maybe, and fine. 
But: ambiguous using language and the written word, say imagining it
written on paper.  The SAME RESPECT we've given to other languages in
the last few months.
  
But I guess we don't extend that respect to Arabic (or in the past,
Turkish). This result?  It decides to completely ignore the clear and
simple known precepts of the Arabic language, and decide on some kind
of byte order.  Why stop there??  Why not say "hey, all this English
stuff?  It's just ASCII and we can't read numbers!"  No? I guess not. 

But hey - this Arabic stuff??  Well, it's not some important language,
like say Japanese.  Let's just translate it to bytes and ignore the
meaning, eh?  Completely re-arrange the word order like no native
speaker, and not even a translation machine, would do, eh?  I guess
that's fine.  Basic principles of reading with good faith don't apply
to a language like *that*.  Let's talk about byte order, instead.  

Well, 46 75 63 6b 2c 20 66 75 63 6b 20 74 68 69 73 2e.

I consider you folks my friends, and, intended or not, I want you to
know how this is coming across. I know this is mainly an intellectual
exercise for us - we like the puzzles of wrestling with translations in
ancient languages, and figuring out odd logic (like byte stuff) to get
out of ambiguous or paradoxical situations.  That's all fun, well, and
good.

So I've really tried to understand the Japanese, but even the signature 
characters just come across to me gibberish - due to the low resolution
of the characters on the display, I just can't learn it from reading it
here.  I transliterate that nickname in my head as "Japanese Character
Guy" every time I see the characters.  It feels exclusionary to me
(especially as there's others who understand better), and I feel left
out.  

Though I've generally ignored that feeling - not a big deal.  I've even
spent more time trying to program the CFJ database to accept those
characters than I have on any other aspect of programming and updating. 

And now, here - double exclusion.  There's no similar respect for a
language I can (to a very slight measure) cope with.

Now, I'm pretty sure you didn't intend to come across this way, and 
thought of this as just another clever logic solution.  And I'm VERY
sure my sensitivity is in a large part due to current World events. I
come here to escape, I've never brought politics here (especially not
Turkish ones) but the last few months in Agora have brought 
Dictatorships, Juntas, and now this unthinking exclusion of treating
different languages fundamentally differently, at a time that issues
and misunderstandings around language and culture affecting my family
are happening in the West in a bad way.  

I know it's a game, here, but sorry, right now it's just too close to
home. Time to think about stepping away, maybe for a while.

Maybe, knowing me, this 

Re: BUS: Either way you look at it... [also contains a CFJ ID number assignment]

[Alex Smith]

Judge's evidence on CFJs 3534/3535:
{{{
On Wed, 2017-06-28 at 16:16 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> I call for judgement on the following statement : أدعو إلى إصدار حكم بشأن 
> البيان التالي

The source of the body for the above-quoted message is (with bytes
outside the ASCII range replaced by hexadecimal numbers in angle
brackets):

>   This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text,
>   while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
> 
> ---1903399159-33069213-1498691760=:22422
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-6
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I call for judgement on the following statement :  
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> ---1903399159-33069213-1498691760=:22422--
}}}

Judge's arguments on CFJs 3534/3535:
{{{
The arguments so far have hinged on the message in question being
ambiguous, but is that really the case? I believe that, given the
method via which it was sent, the original message cannot reasonably be
interpreted as being in Arabic.

What's notable here is that an encoding of text can convey the meaning
of the text in two different ways; either using a visual ordering, in
which the sequence of bytes is corresponds to the positions of the
individual characters on the page; or a logical ordering, in which the
sequence of bytes corresponds to the order in which the characters they
represent have meaning (i.e. bytes that appear earlier in the byte
stream correspond to letters closer to the start of words, words closer
to the start of sentences, and so on). A visual ordering would not help
resolve the ambiguity in respect to the CFJ. A logical ordering would,
though, as the bytes are conveying not only the appearance of the text
in this case, but also the intended reading order.

The standard referenced in the message for the understanding of the
bytes it contains is ISO-8859-6 (which cannot be obtained from ISO
without payment, but Ecma have a standard Ecma-114 which they claim is
equivalent). The body of the standard contains no opinion on whether
the text it's used to represent is in logical or visual order. However,
email clients in practice appear to interpret it as being in logical
order; in my client, the bytes , corresponding to the
Arabic letters «أ» then «د» then «ع» then «و», are rendered as the
Arabic word «أدعو» (in other words, they're rendered right to left, the
normal logical order of Arabic, and the opposite order that they appear
in the bytestream).

The word in question is a real Arabic word, translating to "I invite" /
"I call" / "I appeal". If we reverse the order of the letters, to get
«دعوأ», this is no longer a real Arabic word, strongly implying that
the message was meant to be in logical order; if the message were meant
to be in visual order, the Arabic text would therefore have been
written backwards (i.e. left to right, when right to left is the
language's normal writing order).

I can also see how my email client interprets the message by asking it
to word-wrap it:

> I call for judgement on the following statement : أدعو إلى إصدار حكم
> بشأن البيان التالي

This word-wrapping is clearly incompatible with an Arabic
interpretation of the message, as it would have split the Arabic in
half with some English text in the middle.

In other words, I'm not seeing any sensible way to interpret the
English text as coming "after" the Arabic text. The message itself
contains an indication that the Arabic text comes second.
}}}

I judge CFJ 3534 ("In the below quoted message, a CFJ
was initiated on the phrase 'I call for judgement on the following
statement'") FALSE, and CFJ 3535 ("In the below quoted message, a CFJ
was initiated on the phrase 'أدعو إلى إصدار حكم بشأن البيان التالي'")
TRUE.

Given that I've now determined the existence of a CFJ in G.'.s original
message, I number it CFJ 3536, assign it to myself if I haven't already
done so, and judge it DISMISS (it machine-translates to "I call for a
ruling on the following statement", is clearly intended to mean "I call
for judgement on the following statement" from context, and it has no
following statement to refer to, given that it's the last statement in
the original email).

-- 
ais523
Judge, CFJs 3534/3535/3536
Arbitor