CALL FOR CRIMINAL JUDGEMENT ARCHIVE (121-130)

Call For Criminal Judgement 121 - Sat, 18 Jan 1997 18:51:13 -0500
Subject: The pot calling the kettle black
Initiator: snowgod
Judge: Mohammed (selected Jan 17, 1997, 13:06 EST)
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

Malenkai has commited a crime.

On January 16, 1997 Malenkai posted a message containing the following text in response to a gift of a prosthetic forehead:

>Thanks.  I gratefully ack this transaction.  Does this mean I have a
>big head? ;)  In any case, I remove my current forehead and put this
>new one on.

This attempt to place a new prosthetic on his head so soon after removing the original is clearly in violation of R915/8 (paragraph five), which reads:

>A Player who is not already wearing a Prosthetic Forehead may wear any one
>e owns by announcing publicly that e is doing so and what type of
>Prosthetic Forehead is involved. A Player who is wearing a Prosthetic
>Forehead may remove it by announcing the action publicly. After a player
>removes a Prosthetic Forehead, his real head is sore for 48 hours and she
>may not wear a Prosthetic Forehead during this time.

It is understandable, with all the hailing and such going on, that Malenkai might have gotten a bit overanxious to wear his fine new forehead. But rules are rules, and we must live by them, especially a role model such as Malenkai. By attempting to commit an action which is impossible Malenkai has commited a crime and must be punished.

a FINE of A$7
a PUBLIC APOLOGY of 7 or more lines
a SENTENCE of 7 days in the Gaol

I was going to go look through the rules to verify snowgod's reasoning (it looks waterproof to me but stranger things have happened) but it doesn't much matter. I'm certain that, at some point or another, Malenkai has broken other rules (as have we all.) So, in the interest of getting rid of this CFCJ ASAP and moving on to the *next* 100 messages in my box, I'm ruling this TRUE.

The CFCJ system is seriously broken; practically all CFCJs must be ruled TRUE until it is fixed. The double jeopardy clause is useless; the details of this mess are left as an exercise for the reader.

A FINE of A$ 7.

Call For Criminal Judgement 122 -
Subject: Deja vu all over again
Initiator: snowgod
Judge: /dev/joe (selected Jan 17, 1997, 13:11 EST)
Judgement: Invalid

Statement:

Malenkai has commited a crime.

On January 16, 1997 Malenkai posted a message containing the following text in response to a gift of a prosthetic forehead:

>Thanks.  I gratefully ack this transaction.  Does this mean I have a
>big head? ;)  In any case, I remove my current forehead and put this
>new one on.

This attempt to place a new prosthetic on his head so soon after removing the original is clearly in violation of R915/8 (paragraph five), which reads:

>A Player who is not already wearing a Prosthetic Forehead may wear any one
>e owns by announcing publicly that e is doing so and what type of
>Prosthetic Forehead is involved. A Player who is wearing a Prosthetic
>Forehead may remove it by announcing the action publicly. After a player
>removes a Prosthetic Forehead, his real head is sore for 48 hours and she
>may not wear a Prosthetic Forehead during this time.

It is understandable, with all the hailing and such going on, that Malenkai might have gotten a bit overanxious to wear his fine new forehead. But rules are rules, and we must live by them, especially a role model such as Malenkai. By attempting to commit an action which is impossible Malenkai has commited a crime and must be punished.

a FINE of A$7
a PUBLIC APOLOGY of 7 or more lines
a SENTENCE of 7 days in the Gaol

see rule 211, 4th paragraph.

Call For Criminal Judgement 123 -
Subject: Breaking the rules
Initiator: Red Barn
Judge: Swann (selected Jan 17, 1997, 13:15 EST)
Judgement: Not a valid CFCJ - by the reasoning of CFJ 327

Statement:

Bascule, Jammer, Red Barn and Calvin N Hobbes have broken the rules.

At 1:23 AM on 1/17/97, T Joffrain wrote:

> >  I call for a witch hunt against Jammer.
> >
> >-Red Barn
> >Thoroughly enjoying this.
>
> ROTFL!
>
> When the flame get too high, who ya gona call?
> Flaaamebuster!
>
> That's right ladies and gentlemen, you have here one of the priestest priest
> at your disposal, ready to make your life pure and perfect again.
>
> So as priest of the Church of the Markovian Dream, I issue four SOS as per
> R1315 for Bascule, Jammer, Red Barn and Calvin N Hobbes.
>
> Guys, all we have to do is stay silent for 27 hours and we'll be saved! of
> course, there will be the small matter of an A$11 fee for those not member
> of the church...   :)
>
> I'll see you all on Saturday.
>
> Calvin N Hobbes
> having a ball

But rule 1329/0 reads:

> Rule 1329/0 Church Sanctuary
> Calvin N Hobbes  (Thierry Joffrain)
>
> If a player is declared a Heretic or otherwise threatened to be burned, then
> any priest can grant the player a "Sanctuary Of Salvation", even if the
> priest is the player herself, by making a public statement to that effect.
>
> That player is said to have taken refuge in solemn meditation and may not
> send any public messages for 27 hours. Any witchhunt against the player is
> canceled.
>
> If the player breaks her vows of silence, then the SOS is annulled and all
> proceedings (as Heretic) against the player can resume.
>
> If the player is not a member of the church that gave her sanctuary, and did
> stay silent for 27 hours, then she must pay A$11 to the priest of that church.
>
>
>  Created by Proposal 1329, Oct 21 1996
>  Amended by Proposal 1380, Nov 3 1996, by Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)

Note the use of the feminine pronoun.

A fine of A$20

Call For Criminal Judgement 124 - Thu, 23 Jan 1997 19:41:05 -0500
Subject: Illegal CFCJ
Initiator: Red Barn
Judge: Bascule (selected Jan 17, 1997, 19:20 EST)
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

Red Barn has committed a crime.

Red Barn attempted, on Jan 16, 1997, at 21:59, to submit as a CFCJ something which was in fact not one. This was, depending upon one's view, either illegal or invalid. If it was illegal, it was a crime. If it was invalid it was impermissible and the attempt to do it was therefore a crime. It could not have been legal, because if so it was a permitted and unregulated action. But it attempts to be an action regulated by one of the rules, and therefore is regulated by the rules. Therefore, Red Barn has committed a crime.

A FINE of A$10 payable by Player Red Barn to the Treasury.

The Judge concurs with the initiator's reasoning. The Judge wishes the defendant well in his attempt to be dubbed a Crazy Scotsman.

A FINE of A$10 payable by Player Red Barn to the Treasury.

Call For Criminal Judgement 125 - Thu, 23 Jan 1997 19:42:11 -0500
Subject: Illegal CFCJ (deja vu all over again)
Initiator: Red Barn
Judge: Bascule (selected Jan 17, 1997, 19:23 EST)
Judgement: Invalid

Statement:

Red Barn has committed a crime.

Red Barn attempted, on Jan 16, 1997, at 21:59, to submit as a CFCJ something which was in fact not one. This was, depending upon one's view, either illegal or invalid. If it was illegal, it was a crime. If it was invalid it was impermissible and the attempt to do it was therefore a crime. It could not have been legal, because if so it was a permitted and unregulated action. But it attempts to be an action regulated by one of the rules, and therefore is regulated by the rules. Therefore, Red Barn has committed a crime.

A FINE of A$10 payable by Player Red Barn to the Treasury.

See rule 211, 4th paragraph.

Call For Criminal Judgement 126 - Fri, 17 Jan 1997 23:33:45 -0500
Subject: Breaking the silence
Initiator: Malenkai
Judge: /dev/joe (selected Jan 17, 1997, 22:23 EST)
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

snowgod has committed a Crime.

Feeling left out of the CFCJ party, I submit this because it interests me in moving towards defining what it means to "break the rules". This sort of thing interests me, anyway.

On Friday, Jan 17th, at 19:05, I granted snowgod a "Sanctuary of Silence" in accordance with R 1315. I do not believe there can be any dispute as to whether or not that was done successfully.

I quote the second paragraph of R 1315:

> That player is said to have taken refuge in solemn meditation and may
> not send any public messages for 27 hours. Any witchhunt against the
> player is canceled.

On Friday, Jan 17th, at 20:16, snowgod made a public post praising /dev/joe's ridicule of Red Barn in regards to the Machine that goes *ping*. Rather than clutter this with e-mail headers, it can be verified that such a post was made by checking the ftp archives on wilma, if you want.

The passage above is clear. The player under SOS may not send any public messages, and thus snowgod broke the rules by doing so. So, in breaking the rules, we have a Felony per R 713, and a crime, thus a verdict of TRUE is indicated.

Or is it? R 1315 goes on to say:

> If the player breaks her vows of silence, then the SOS is annulled and
> all proceedings (as Heretic) against the player can resume.

There seem to be 2 possibilities:

Does this allow the player to break this rule, and thus in breaking the silence clause, they really aren't breaking the rules, because a penalty is defined here?

or

Is this an additional penalty, over and above criminal penalties, for breaking the rule?

At the time of CFCJ 102, it was discussed that because the rule in question had a penalty defined for violation, no additional penalties could be imposed. However, that reasoning never become part of explicit or implicit game custom, it was just discussion.

I certainly find the second interpretation above much more satisifying; R 713 is clear that a crime has been committed if the rules have been broken. The only way out of it to get to the first interpretation is to somehow allow that the rules were not actually broken, despite the rather bold:

> [the player] may not send any public messages for 27 hours.

It comes down to:

You may not do X, but if you do, Y happens to you. vs
You may not do X.

The second one really renders to:
You may not do X [but if you do, CFCJ penalties shall apply]

The fact that one sort of penalty is in another rule, and the 'Y' penalty is in the same rule should not matter.

A FINE of A$20 payable by Player snowgod to Malenkai.

Mohammed's Crime Bill set up a framework for solving these sorts of situations.

I agree that Malenkai successfully granted snowgod a Sanctuary of Silence and that this Sanctuary was still in effect when snowgod sent the message in question.

Rule 1315 says, in part:

That player is said to have taken refuge in solemn meditation and may not send any public messages for 27 hours. Any witchhunt against the player is canceled.

Rule 713 says, in part:

To perform an action specified by the Rules to be Illegal is a Crime. An action specified by the Rules to be "impermissible" is, by contrast, impossible. However, an attempt to commit such an action is a Crime [even though the action itself does not occur].

Rule 1315's "may not send any public message" is a statement that an action is impermissible (as opposed to illegal). Thus, Rule 713 says it is *impossible* for snowgod to send a public message during his sanctuary of silence.

However, Rule 372 says:

A message is a public message if and only if it is distributed to all registered Players who subscribe to the official mailing list, and the subject line contains either "Ackanomic:" or "Acka:"

snowgod's message in question was sent to the main mailing list, and had the required subject line. So Rule 372 says snowgod did send a public message.

This is a conflict between rules 372 and 713, and neither rule claims or defers precedence, so rule 372 wins. Thus, that message was a public message. However, by the last above quoted sentence Rule 713, the attempt to send the public message was a Crime. Thus, the CFCJ is TRUE.

However, rule 1315 has an additional stipulation:

If the player breaks her vows of silence, then the SOS is annulled and all proceedings (as Heretic) against the player can resume.

The only meaningful interpretations of the above are that if the player manages to send, or possibly simply attempts to send (both cases are true here) a public message, the witchhunt continues where it left off.

This does not claim to make the sending of a public message no longer be a crime, or no longer be impermissible. In Malenkai's terms, this is an additional penalty for breaking the rule.

The rules state that a penalty of a FINE may only be paid to the Treasury. I think what Malenkai wanted is to get his court fee back:
A TRANSFERENCE of A$20 from snowgod to Malenkai.

Call For Criminal Judgement 127 - Tue, 21 Jan 1997 12:58:09 -0500
Subject: Improper Witchhunts
Initiator: Strider
Judge: ThinMan (selected Jan 18, 1997, 19:38 EST)
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

Mohammed has committed a crime.

Jason Orendorff wrote:

>
> > This epidemic needs stamping out.
> >
> > I believe Niccolo Flychuck has snowgod's disease, and I am calling
> > for a hearing to that effect.
> >
> > Bascule
>
> I call a withhunt on Bascule for making this obviously heretical
> statement.
>
> --Mohammed
> trying to see how many hearings we can get going at the same time.

In the preceding message, Mohammed called a witchhunt on Bascule for making a supposedly Heretical statement. R1307 states that Heresy consists of the contradiction of the statement "The Earth is flat." Furthermore, the only conditions under which a witchhunt may be called, are if a player refers to the Earth being round, or implies that this is the case. Being that Bascule's statement consists of none of these, I believe Mohammed to have committed a crime in calling a Witchhunt on him.

The ceasing of the Witchhunt against Bascule, and a public apology by Mohammed to Bascule

From rule 101: "Actions described in the rules may only be performed[...] as specified by the rules."

From rule 710: "If, in a public message, a Player refers to the Earthbeing round, or implies that this may be the case, any other Player may start a Witchhunt by sending a public message that names the alleged witch, quotes his or her allegedly heretical message, and calls for a Witchhunt."

It appears that Mohammed has attempted to call a witchunt without adhering to the restrictions imposed by rule 710. In particular, the quoted message does not referto the Earth being round, nor indeed, to the Earth being any particular shape whatsoever. There is no rule that permits a witchhunt to be called as Mohammed has attempted to do, thus Mohammed's attempt is in violation of rule 101, and is a Crime.

I note that the suggested penalty is not among the valid penalties, but after carefully reading R 710, I do not find this sufficient to indicate a verdict of invalid. However, I do not believe that Mohammed's attempt to call a witchhunt actually succeeded, so the witchhunt never actually began, and its cessation is not possible.

A PUBLIC APOLOGY of at least three lines.
A FINE of A$25.

Call For Criminal Judgement 128 - Fri, 24 Jan 1997 22:47:25 -0500
Subject: Illegal Game Joining
Initiator: /dev/joe
Judge: fnord (selected Jan 23, 1997, 20:09 EST)
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

Eponimondas has committed a Crime.

Eponimondas broke Rule 250, which states, in part:

No person may register as a player more than once concurrently.

Eponimondas registered two additional times, as nietzsche and Joan of Arkansas. By Rule 713, "Crime", these extra registrations never occurred, but the attempt to do so was a crime. If this is judged True, the game state shall be reset as if these two had never joined -- all their A$ shall be returned to the treasury, their houses will vanish and their land become common. Any game action they ever took is invalidated; I know only of the transfers in the 3 mail messages provided as evidence below. Fortunately, nietzsche and Joan of Arkansas never became active players, so I don't have to undo Whamiol score changes.

> From: MIR1@webtv.net (Moses Rojas)
> Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 14:24:54 -0500
> Subject: money
>
> I hereby give all my acka $ to Joan of Arkansas,
> if she acks it.

> From: adamgesh@webtv.net (Adam Gesher)
> Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 14:28:14 -0500
> Subject: acka bux
>
> i hereby give all my acka $ to joan of arkansas,
> if she acks it. - nietzsche

> From: betsieboots@webtv.net (Zelda B. Morris)
> Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 14:35:40 -0500
> Subject: Acka: I accept.
>
> I accept Nietzsche's and Eponimondas'  money.
> And must inform All, that they were me all along. I thought I'd just
> wait till I could figure a really good paradox win. But I just didn't
> have enough time---I'm returnin' my webtv box. Maybe I'll see you boys
> when I get my 'puter.
> -ZELDA M.
> (for now having to settle for bein' the richest woman in acka)
> P.S. I must resign, me and my DRONES.
> -------JOAN OF ARKANSAS

Only the first registrant, Eponimondas, remains, and I don't believe Joan of Arkansas's message is sufficient to de-register Eponimondas.

The TRANSFERENCE of A$20 to /dev/joe. [repayment of court fee]
A FINE of A$500.
EXPULSION from the game.

According to the admission of one of the three 'players' in question, that they are all the same person in real life. From this fact, it is obvious that a player committed a Crime. The player that committed the crime is the first 'player' that signed up for this game, as e is the player that then went on to break the rules by signing up twice more, under other names.

Thankfully, it is not up to me to determine if Eponimondas is still in the game or not, but my take on the 'resignation', is that it referred only to the player 'Joan of Arkansas', since it was posted in a message signed by that 'player'.

I accept the suggestion of /dev/joe, and hereby proclaim the penalty to be:

The TRANSFERENCE of A$20 to /dev/joe. [repayment of court fee]
A FINE of A$500.
EXPULSION from the game.

Call For Criminal Judgement 129 -
Subject: Illegal return from vacation
Initiator: Malenkai
Judge: Strider (selected Feb 06, 1997, 23:36 EST)
Judgement: retracted

Statement:

Mohammed committed a crime.

Mohammed attempted to preform the following game action exactly 1 hour after he was placed on vacation as a result of proposal 1700 failing quorum:

> I am hereby returning from vacation.

R 255 is explicit, however:

> The one exception is that a player who has been on vacation less
> than 2 days may not take themselves off vacation.

Mohammed was on vacation less than 2 days, thus attempted to break the rules.

TRANSFERRENCE of all Scrolls of Crumble, and all Runestone of Jukkasjarvi Fragments possessed by Mohammed to the initiator of the CFCJ. Unfortunately, in their hasty departure, I could not transcribe the runes for further release, and need to see them again.

Call For Criminal Judgement 130 - Tue, 18 Feb 1997 23:20:08 -0500
Subject: Machine
Initiator: Strider
Judge: /dev/joe (selected Feb 18, 1997, 21:25 EST)
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

Strider has committed a crime.

R1209 states, in part; "The truth must be such that the Machine shall not fail to go *ping* for any seven consecutive calendar days," In posting a truth which strayed from this, Strider broke the rules.

You tell me.

Strider posted the truth on Sunday, February 9.

The machine failed to go ping on February 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16. Then the machine went *ping* on February 17, which Strider reported to us late (on the 18th).

Rule 1209 states:
"The truth must be such that the Machine shall not fail to go *ping* for any seven consecutive calendar days ... during the current Scholar's term."

If Strider's posts about the truth are correct, his chosen truth violates the above-quoted section of rule 1209. If they are not correct, then Strider has lied to us about when the machine went *ping*, violating other parts of Rule 1209. In any case, it is clear that Strider has committed a crime.

Rule 1209 will pay Strider A$50 if nobody submits a CFCJ against him within 3 days *after* he posts the undisguised truth, but he is not allowed to do so in the current circumstances until this verdict is returned. For this reason, I expect he's going to get the A$50 anyway. He has already spent A$20 initiating the CFCJ, so I choose to just revoke this payment via the penalty. I choose a penalty of a FINE of A$50.