status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3810
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 3810 ===============================
It is generally POSSIBLE to act on behalf of a zombie to transfer
karma.
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Caller: twg
Barred: Alexis
Judge: Jason
Judgement: FALSE
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History:
Called by twg: 09 Feb 2020 22:58:27
Assigned to Jason: 19 Feb 2020 15:20:47
Judged FALSE by Jason: 26 Feb 2020 19:24:07
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Gratuitous Arguments by Alexis:
On Sun, 9 Feb 2020 at 17:19, Timon Walshe-Grey wrote:
> On Bernie's behalf, Notice of Honour:
> -1 Gaelan (applying the CSS for eir ruleset primarily via arbitrary
> emoji. I don't know why you would do this)
> +1 Jason (having to assess two consecutive large proposal distributions,
> including proposals that change voting strengths)
>
> -twg
I will be treating this as invalid, per R2510:
> A player CAN publish a Notice of Honour. ... When a Notice of Honour is
> published...
and R2466:
> ... A person CANNOT act
> on behalf of another person to do anything except perform a game
> action; in particular, a person CANNOT act on behalf of another
> person to send a message, only to perform specific actions that
> might be taken within a message.
Since publishing a document an out-of-game action with in-game effect,
I believe it cannot be done via acting on behalf.
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Caller's Arguments:
Hmm, interesting one! We've all been doing this for ages without ever
questioning whether it was actually POSSIBLE. As far as I can tell, the
earliest usage was by D. Margaux in 2018
(https://www.mail-archive.com/agora-
busin...@agoranomic.org/msg32681.html),
but nobody CFJed it because we got distracted by a related CFJ from
Trigon (later withdrawn? can't find any record of it in G.'s archive)
and an argument between Aris and G. Definitely worth a judgement.
On balance, I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation. The effect of
a Notice of Honour is "considered to be a 'transfer' of karma" (R2510),
and asset transfers are undeniably a game action; it would be a bit of a
stretch to argue that karma transfers are not. So although publication
itself is excluded from acting-on-behalf, I would argue that karma
transfers are perfectly kosher, and therefore that "[an] agent CAN
perform the action in the same manner in which the principal CAN do so"
(R2466) - i.e. by means of publishing a Notice of Honour.
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Gratuitous Arguments by Aris:
Note that ballots are defined in nearly the same way. Rule 683 says that
"An entity submits a ballot on an Agoran decision by publishing a notice
satisfying the following conditions:". While the definition is active
voice, rather than passive voice, they're otherwise quite similar.
In addition, I really don’t see any significant difference between the
definition of publishing a Notice of Honor and the definition of acting by
announcement. Rule 478 says in relevant part "To 'publish' or 'announce'
something is to send a public message whose body contains that thing.
[...] Where the rules define an action that a person CAN perform 'by
announcement', that person performs that action by unambiguously and
clearly specifying the action and announcing that e performs it." Again,
everything is defined in terms of out of game messages having in game
effects. In short, the only principled distinction I can see is that a
Notice of Honor is defined in the passive voice whereas some other
definitions are active. Maybe the judge will be able to see a distinction
I can't.
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Judge Jason's Arguments:
The caller argues that a "transfer" of Karma is an action that a person
CAN perform by publishing a Notice of Honour. I reject this argument.
The relevant paragraph from Rule 2510/5 is:
> When a valid Notice of Honour is published, the entity specified
> to gain karma has eir karma increased by one, and the entity
> specified to lose karma has eir karma decreased by one. Raising
> one entity's karma while lowering another's in this manner is
> considered to be a "transfer" of karma.
This never enables any person to transfer karma; all it does is state
that when some condition is fulfilled, some the karma is transferred,
without providing any method for a person to perform the transfer
directly. Put another way, persons have a way to cause a transfer of
karma without having a way to transfer karma themselves.
Because the transfer modifies Karma information, for which the Herald is
the recordkeepor, the transfer is a regulated action. This means not
only do the rules not provide a method to transfer karma, it is
IMPOSSIBLE for a person to transfer karma without the Rules explicitly
providing a method.
Since no zombie CAN transfer karma, no person CAN act on behalf of a
zombie to transfer karma. FALSE.
However, the caller probably intended to ask whether a message such as
the following would have the intended effect (where Bob is the sender's
zombie):
I cause Bob to publish the following Notice of Honour:
+1 Alice: Existing
-1 Eve: Existing
Rule 2466/1 states that
> A person CANNOT act
> on behalf of another person to do anything except perform a game
> action; in particular, a person CANNOT act on behalf of another
> person to send a message, only to perform specific actions that
> might be taken within a message.
Rule 478/37 states that 'To "publish" or "announce" something is to send
a public message whose body contains that thing'. Because of this
definition, it is generally IMPOSSIBLE to act on behalf of another
person to "publish" information, since that would be acting on behalf to
send a message, which is prohibited by Rule 2466.
Interestingly, Rule 2510/5 states that "A person CAN publish a Notice of
Honour"; this does not appear to have any effect, since persons CAN
already publish most things, though this could be interpreted as making
a document purporting to be a Notice of Honour an actual, official
Notice of Honour. I do not rule on this matter here, this is simply on
observation.
Despite this enabling clause, I find that publishing Notices of Honour
is still not a game action for the purposes of Rule 2466, since it is
still inherently publishing information. thus, per Rule 2466, it is
IMPOSSIBLE. The above hypothetical message would not cause the zombie to
publish a Notice of Honour.
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