status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#4042
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 4042 ===============================
At the time the Assessor first attempted to resolve the Agoran
decision about whether to adopt proposal 8989, ais523's vote on
that proposal resolved to PRESENT.
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Caller: ais523
Judge: G.
Judgement: DISMISS
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History:
Called by ais523: 05 Jun 2023 00:19:23
Assigned to G.: 12 Jun 2023 22:58:01
Judged DISMISS by G.: 13 Jun 2023 18:12:54
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Caller's Arguments:
Rule 2127 requires a conditional vote to be "determinate" in
order to avoid evaluating to PRESENT. Rule 2518 requires a value to be
reasonably determinable from information reasonably available to be
determinate.
Were my rice holdings actually determinate at this point? There has
been mass confusion (and several CFJs) regarding how the rice rules
actually work, with at least two CFJs unresolved at the time of the
attempted resolution. The Ricemastor is inactive, and has missed
reports. Some people have taken to attempting to sign Rice Plans using
lots of different wordings in the same message, in the apparent hope
that at least one of them will work.
Further evidence is that the Assessor appeared to be in sufficient
doubt about my Rice holdings that e immediately CoEd eir own
resolution, referring the situation to CFJ – this implies that it was
unreasonable for em to determine my Rice holding, otherwise e would
probably have done so. (In general, it seems that although it's
reasonable to tie a report to a CFJ outcome, it is unreasonable to do
the same for a conditional vote.)
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Judge G.'s Arguments:
As per R2518/1, a value is indeterminate if it "CANNOT be reasonably
determined (without circularity or paradox) from information
reasonably available". As per R2127/11, the determinacy of
conditional votes is calculated as per conditions at the time the
voting period ends. Importantly, the verb "determined" is an active
verb that implies the determination is being conducted by persons
(thinking beings) - and that determination is a physical/mental
process that takes time. Taken literally, it is physically impossible
for anybody to make the determination at (exactly) the end of the
voting period, because given email delays, the full set of information
isn't practically known until at least a few minutes after the
deadline passes. To make sense of these rules, then, is to assume
that the "information reasonably available" must be present (or en
route with an early enough datestamp) at the end of the voting period,
but that "determination" is an allowable interpretive process - e.g.
by the Assessor - that can occur after the voting period has closed.
To this end, the caller has erred in eir arguments, in noting that the
CoE and CFJ calling are evidence of indeterminacy. Rather, they are
part of the working determination process, not evidence of its
failure. CFJs must be taken to be an acceptable part of the
"reasonable determination" process occurring after the deadline, or
they would fail to set up a "reasonable expectation" of controversy
resolution as mandated by R217/12. So the Assessor calling a CFJ is
simply exporting the formal responsibility for determination to a
judge. While it is unfortunate that judicial delays may drag out the
determination process, R217 confirms (essentially defines) that these
CFJ delays are still within the timeline for "reasonably" determining
a result or resolving a controversy about the interpretation of a
result.
CFJ 4032 has been called that questions the results of the first Rice
Harvest. CFJ 4043 is questioning the result of the second Rice
Harvest. If neither of those CFJs finds the situation indeterminate,
then that would answer ("reasonably determine") the status of ais523's
vote at the time the voting period ended. This current CFJ could be
trivially revisited when those CFJs are judged, but until then, in
deference to those CFJs, I DISMISS this case.
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