Call For Criminal Judgement Archive (171-180)

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Call for Criminal Judgment 171 - July 6, 1998
Subject: Original Sin
Initiator: K 2 (Sent 6 Jul 1998, 09:53 Acka)
Judge: JT (Selected 6 Jul 1998, 17:39 Acka)
Verdict: True

Statement:

Vynd committed the Crime of Original Sin on 6th of July 1998

Reasoning:

At 09:24:09 on the date in question, the nefarious evil doer, Vynd posted the following message:

>I knew I should have crumbled some of those things, 
>or at least offered to buy them off of you.  
>If it is the case that K 2 has played a Felicitous
>Populi card on the determination of who rides the 
>rocket, as quoted above, then I am playing a Go 
>Fish Otzma Card on his Felicitous Populi play.
>                     - Vynd

The action of playing the Go Fish card is clearly conditional on the game state.

Whereever that most deadly of sins is in the rule set right now it reads in part:

>Attempting to take a public action which is conditional 
>upon one or more aspects of the Ackan game
>state, the truth or falsehood of which aspects must be 
>determined by the Harfers, constitutes a commission of this 
>vile, heinous, and extremely naughty Sin.

and rule 777 states in part:

>A player who commits any of the Seven Deadly Sins 
>is guilty of the Crime of Original Sin, and a judge 
>convicting such a player is encouraged to be as harsh 
>as possible in penalizing the infidel.

The Financier/Runemaker must determine if the felicitous populi was played in order ro determine if the go fish was played. The Financier/Runemaker is a Harfer as that term is customarily applied.

Take em away.

Since this vile miscreant is about to hop into a spaceship to avoid justice the penalty should be particularly harsh.

Suggested Penalty:

A 70 line penalty
Transference of a Scroll of Crumble and A$ 25 to the initiator of this CFCJ.

Judge's Reasoning:

The only thing at question was whether or not the Financier or RuneMaker was a 'Harfer', and that I believe to be the case.
There is no question in my mind that this was in fact an attempt at a conditional action.
Therefore, I find that Vynd did in fact commit the Sin of Annoying the Harfers and judge TRUE with the following Penalty.

Actual Penalty:

A SENTANCE of 3 days in Gaol. (note that this could actually remove him from the spaceship if he's already taken off :)
A PUBLIC APOLOGY of 20 lines.
The TRANSFERANCE of A$25 to K 2. (to cover legal fees)
I believe these are sufficiently harsh for the vile crime committed.

Call for Criminal Judgement 172 - August 5, 1998
Subject: Spam
Initiator: Slakko (Sent 5 Aug 1998, 12:27 Acka time)
1st Judge: Fortunato (Selected 06 Aug 1998, 17:29 Acka time) (deadbeat)
2nd Judge: Rig R. Mortis (selected 15 Aug 1998, 08:52 Acka time)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

Brie Clump committed the Crime of Being Annoying on August 5th, 1998.

Initiator's Reasoning:

Rule 721 defines the only ways to be Annoying, and hence commit the crime of Being Annoying. One of these is Spam, defined to be "Pursuing a game strategy which entails, as one of its effects, causing excessive amounts of messages to be sent to the public fora [in the judgement of a judge]".

The only question here is whether Brie Clump's game strategy causes excessive amounts of messages to be sent to the public fora. Twelve proposals from the one player in a single day appears to me to be excessive, and it is clearly part of Brie Clump's strategy. So if the judge of this CFCJ agrees with me, then Brie Clump has committed the Crime of Being Annoying.

[I just thought I'd run this up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes.]

Judge's Reasoning:

I judge FALSE. I believe 12 messages in one day is short of being annoying. I myself wasn't particularly annoyed and can only base my judgement on that.

Call For Criminal Judgement 173 - August 13, 1998
Subject: Hubert's Branch Stacking
Initiator: 867-5309 (sent Thu, 13 Aug 1998 21:03 Acka)
1st Judge: K 2 (selected 15 Aug 1998, 04:19 Acka) (deadbeat)
2nd Judge: Piz (selected 22 Aug 1998, 04:37 Acka)
Judgement: INVALID

Statement:

On 5 August 1998 the player who is legally able to assume the Ackanomic name of "Hubert" committed the Crime of Branch-Stacking.

Reasoning:

Rule 1009 states "Being a member of more than one Political Party simultaneously is the Crime of Branch-Stacking." The player legally able to assume the Ackanomic name of Hubert (hereafter referred to as 867-5309) is a member of the Razor Boomerangs Political Party, and has been pretty much since joining Ackanomic.

Recently, in response to the proposed formation of the Anti-Voting Preservation Party (or AVPP), the alleged criminal posted "I join the AVPP." I think this can be construed as a statement of intent to join, or whatever was needed at the time.

Then, on August 5, Ethelred posted the following text:

"I think the AVPP now has enough members to be official. They are:

Idiot Boy
Atilla the Pun
K2
Tom Walmsley

I'm not sure if I need to pay the A$300 as has been suggested, since I'm not actually transforming a society into a political party, and I specified from the start that I was forming a political party, not a society."

(E later corrected the list to include emself.)

Now, one question is: which Tom Walmsley did e mean? The Org-Harfer seems to believe that e referred to the player with the Real Life name of Tom Walmsley, since no player with that Ackanomic name existed at the time. This is not (exactly) a "867-5309's name used to be Tom Walmsley" CFJ, but close to it. (If that can be proven, this CFJ should, barring other complications, be TRUE as far as I can see.) But the player with the Real Life name of Tom Walmsley (hereafter referred to as MTM) could not have been a member of the AVPP, period.

You see, clause 6 of Rule 1003 explicitly states "No player may become a member of an Organization without first expressing their consent to joining it.." MTM never expressed eir consent to join. So, regardless of 867-5309's name at the time, MTM could never have been a member.

The reason I believe that 867-5309 *is* a member is a) because I believe eir name change to "Tom Walmsley" succeeded, and b) because even had it not succeeded, there was sufficient confusion to that effect at the time that "Tom Walmsley" could have been accepted as a nickname for 867-5309. In other words, there was only one player whose name could possibly have been construed as Tom Walmsley who could legally have been a founding member. This is about as unambiguous as it gets.

Anyway,

Recommended Penalty:

An APOLOGY of 10 lines or more.
A DEDUCTION of 25 points from the criminal's score.
EXPULSION from the Anti-Voting Preservationist Party.
The ADMONISHMENT to "Don't do that again. And we mean it this time."

Judge's Reasoning:

Rule 710 states: "3) Its "statement" shall be "X committed the Crime of Y on Z", where X is replaced with the name of a registered player, Y is replaced by the name of a Crime as defined in the current ruleset, and Z is replaced by a date between 0 and 30 days prior to the current date."

The Statement as submitted in the CFJ does not use the form "X committed the Crime of Y on Z."

PROBLEMS WITH SUGGESTED PENALTIES

Rule 710 also states:

"5) It shall include a "suggested penalty" section, which is a recommended penalty to be imposed on Player X, should a verdict of TRUE be reached. More than one class of penalty may be recommended. The valid classes of penalties are: a) a DEDUCTION of 0 or more points from Player X's score. b) a FINE of 1 or more A$ payable by Player X to the Treasury. c) a SENTENCE in the Gaol of 1 or more days for Player X. d) the TRANSFERENCE of one or more trinkets, gadgets, or A$ in the possession of Player X to the initiator of the CFCJ. e) the EXPULSION of Player X from the game. f) a PUBLIC APOLOGY of 1 or more lines by Player X. g) the REMOVAL of Player X from one or more Organizations to which e currently belongs. h) The IMPEACHMENT of Player X from a single specific office which e currently holds."

The suggested penalty, "An APOLOGY of 10 lines or more," should use the term PUBLIC APOLOGY. According to rule 710, no valid penalty class named APOLOGY exists.

The suggested penalty, "EXPULSION from the Anti-Voting Preservationist Party," is invalid. According to Rule 710, EXPULSION is from the game. REMOVAL would be the correct term to expel a player from an Organization.

The suggested penalty, "The ADMONISHMENT to 'Don't do that again. And we mean it this time,'" is invalid, because no valid penalty class named ADMONISHMENT exists according to Rule 710.

While it is true that these problems with the suggested penalties are not in and of themselves enough to make the CFCU invalid (as Judge, it is within my power, according to Rule 710, paragraph 8a, to amend, correct, or even ignore them), they are, IMNSHO, Bad Form.

SELF-INCRIMINATION

Finally, it's pretty harfy to incriminate yerself. Don't do it again. And I mean it this time. :-)

Call for Criminal Judgement 174 - September 12, 1998
Subject: Malpracticing Financier
Initiator: Weishaupt (sent 12 Sep 1998, 08:12 Acka)
Judge: Robin Hood (selected 12 Sep 1998, 09:00 Acka)
Judgement: TRUE (promulgated 18 Sep 1998, 04:15 Acka)
Appellant: K 2
1st Cortex: /dev/cortex (Mr. Tambourine Man and /dev/joe) (selected 21 Sep1998, 12:13 Acka) (too slow)
2nd Cortex: Amicus Draconis (JT and Vynd) (chosen 31 Oct 1998 06:10 Acka)
Judgement: TRUE (upheld) (promulgated 6 Nov 1998 18:31 Acka)
Appellant: K 2
Supreme Court: Alfvaen, /dev/joe, Gromit, JT, Slakko, Vynd
Supreme Court's Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

K 2 committed the Crime of Malpractice on Aug 28

Reasoning:

This is only true if I have a brie. When I joined, no method of gaining Bries was defined in the rules. Assuming I do have a Brie, K 2 performed his duty as financier incorrectly. According to rule 701, The act of performing a Duty incorrectly is the Crime of Malpractice.

Suggested Penalty:

Transferrence of A$100 to Weishaupt for confusion, consternation, guilt, and psychological trauma

Public Apology of at least 2 lines

Judge's Reasoning:

(none)

Actual Penalty:

A FINE of A$1.

Appellant's Reasoning:

From rule 701: "The act of performing a Duty incorrectly is the Crime of Malpractice."

From rule 412:

" The Duties of the Financier are:

a) To maintain accurate records of the who owns each ownable entity, what each Player owns, and what each named non-Player entity [such as the Treasury or the Chartreuse Goose] owns.

b) To log (or collate logs made by other officers) all transfers of entity ownership and the creation and destruction of entities, and to verify that these events happen only in accordance with the Rules.

c) To make the records and logs available to any Player upon request.

d) To maintain the Free Market (FM), and to verify any transaction made there was made in accordance with the rules. "

Since no player has requested the entity transfer log according to c) no player (aside from myself) is in any position to determine if a breach of a) has occurred. Since the pe page is unregulated it is permissible for it to have any content I choose <power trip> :). While it usually represents *The Truth* maybe in this case it didn't? No one asked so only I can tell.

As the most damning evidence that I didn't do it I present rule 401.x :

" Officers have 3 days to complete the tasks and duties they are responsible for, not counting any time the officer is vacationing or in Gaol, unless other rules unambiguously specify a different finite amount of time for these things. "

On 28/08/1998 3:52:29 Weishaupt joined the game, I had three days to harf eir ownership of A$900 and a trinket (duty 402.a), thus on Aug 28 I was not committing Malpractice. If it occurred it occurred 3 days later. This CFCJ is definitely (first player to say trivially gets a sound thwaping) FALSE.

Cortex's reasoning:

There is a preponderance of evidence that K 2 did in fact perform his duties incorrectly, by incorrectly logging that Weishaupt had a Brie cheese. We note that K 2 did not somehow give Weishaupt a Brie incorrectly, the Financier does not have the ability to create entities except in accordance with the rules, and it was impossible for a Brie to be created at the time in question. Instead, K 2 incorrectly tracked, or in the language of the rules, logged, the existance of a Brie in Weishaupt's possession. Thus K 2 incorrectly performed duties a) and b) of the Financier office, which are (in part) to keep accurate records of what players own, and to log the creation and transfer of entities.

The real question in judging this CFJ is not if the Crime was commited, but when. The appelant (K 2 again) claims that the efficiency section of Rule 400, which allows 3 days for officers to carry out their duties, means that he could not have commited malpractice in regards to Weishaupt's possession on August 28. He bases this claim on the fact that, as Weishaupt had only joined the game on the 28th, as Financier he had still had three days to accurately record Weishaupt's possessions.

We disagree with K 2 on this matter. If this were a case where K 2 had not yet logged Weishaupt as possessing anything on August 28, then his argument would be valid. He would not have performed his duty yet, but he would still have several days in which to do so. This is not what occured. In this case, K 2 performed his duty, but did so incorrectly in that he stated that Weishaupt owned something that he did not. In fact, he commited Malpractice twice, once by claiming that Brie was created, and again by claiming that Weishaupt owned said Brie. The efficiency ceased to apply once K 2 performed his duty, even if it was performed incorrectly.

K 2 also asserts that the contents of the "Player/Entity" page are not, in fact, a log, and need not be accurate. We disagree with this assertion as well. To our knowledge K 2 has never informed players of any means of accessing a "log" other than the website in question. He has presented the information on it as if it were a log, and in the absence of any other visible means of acquiring information on entities and ownership, it has been considered by the players of Ackanomic to be the official source of information from the Financier. We believe that each time a player accesses the "Player/Entity" webpage, this is a "request" by a player for the "records and logs" that are discussed in section c) of Rule 412 Financier and Free Market. Thus, if the webpage is "not" an accurate log, but the Financier has, at the very least, allowed the PLayers of Ackanomic to believe that it is, then he is once again commiting Malpractice, and presumably was commiting Malpractice on August 28, as the same webpage was in use then.

Thus, this court has determined that if K 2 did not have an accurate log of Weishaupt's possessions on August 28 available on the "Player/Entity" webpage, he commited the Crime alleged in this CFCJ. After investigation, some of which is quoted at the end of this message, we have determined that the crime was in fact commited on August 28. Hence we uphold the original judgment of TRUE.

With all that said and done, we consider this CFCJ to be in poor taste. The officers, particularly the Financier, have difficult jobs to do, and will inevitably make mistakes. When they are noticed, it has long been game custom to point them out and allow them to be corrected without punishment, unless of course the the officer disagrees that an error has been made at all. This game custom does not, of course, prevent CFCJs from being filed, but we feel that it is important to note that they were not intended for this purpose. Malpractice is a crime that should only be prosecuted when it has truly damaging effects on the game or a player, neither of which was true in this case. Having stated this for the record, we choose to keep the original penalty of a FINE of A$1. Let the appealer of this CFCJ be penalized with a 0 point deduction.

Appellant's Reasoning (2):

After giving the matter some consideration, I searched the mail logs to see if there was any publicly knowable evidence that I did not harf Weishaupt's entry into Acka on the 28th.

The logs confirm that I posted messages on the 26th of August (~13:06) and then again on the 29th of August (~13:32). It seems reasonable to assume that I downloaded my mail at these times as well.

Furthermore the messages posted on 29th of August:

i) Sat, 29 Aug. 1998 16:48:03 (v03.n290), in reply to an action on 28 Aug. 1998 14:22:40 (v03.n288).

ii) Sat, 29 Aug. 1998 13:33:22 (v03.n204), publicly delivering a verdict to CFJ 648 distributed on 27 Aug. 1998 15:13:18 (v03.n287) and retracted on 28 Aug. 1998 03:59:40 (v03.n288), followed by my oops statement on 29 Aug. 1998 16:47:57 (v03.n204).

would indicate the case of i) that I had only recently read the message from 28 Aug. 1998 14:22:40 and in the case of ii) that I had not read the retraction message from 28 Aug. 1998 03:59:40, at the time I posted my replies (i.e. 29 Aug. 1998 ~13:00).

While it is possible I downloaded my mail between 26th and 28th of August without sending mail, it is highly unlikely I silently downloaded after 3:52:29 (when Weis joined) but before 3:59:40 (the time of the CFJ retraction I didn't know about) on the 28th of August.

Thus it is impossible (or nearly so) for me to have harfed Weishaupt's possessions on the 28th of August simply because I had not downloaded/read my mail at that time.

Supreme Court's Reasoning: (provided by /dev/joe):

The submitter of this CFCJ has not provided evidence that the crime was actually committed on the day in question, and the accused has testified that it did not happen until a later day. Thus we judge this CFCJ FALSE, with no penalty to the earlier judges.

Call for Criminal Judgement 175 - September 13, 1998
Subject: Counter Suing Weishaupt
Initiator: K 2 (sent Sep 13 1998, 11:08 Acka)
Judge: Altra the Firecat (selected Sep 13 1998, 12:16 Acka)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

Weishaupt committed the Crime of being Annoying on 12 Sep 1998.

Reasoning:

I've always thought this crime was too broad/should be unregulated, but here it is and over there is CFCJ 174 - doesn't look very respectful to me :)

Pseudo Penalty:

Burn em at the stake.

Suggested penalty:

Transference of A$125 to the initiator of this CFJ, a four line apology.

Judge's Reasoning:

(none)

Call for Judgement 176 - November 19, 1998
Subject: K 2's Disinterest
Initiator: JT (sent Nov 19 1998, 13:00 Acka)
Judge: Euphrates
Retracted

Statement:

K 2 committed the Crime of Disinterest on Thursday November 19, 1998.

Reasoning:

On Thursday, November 19, 1998, K 2 was not subscribed to any form of the official mailing list.

I note that the time above does not have to be exactly when he unsubscribed, as by the phrasing of the rule (Rule 370), the crime is being continuously committed since the time of unsubscription, and at least at some point on the day in question, K 2 was not subscribed.

Suggested Penalty:

EXPULSION from the game of Ackanomic, which will have the effect of placing K 2 On-Ice.

Call for Criminal Judgement 177 - November 25, 1998
Subject: Pol Pot being Annoying
Initiator: Pol Pot (sent Nov 25 1998, 02:27 Acka)
1st Judge: Thomas Jute
2nd Judge: K 2
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

Pol Pot committed the crime of being annoying on 11/24/98

Reasoning:

In order to satisfy the (unchanging) requirements for treasure in the proper manner, Pol Pot failed to conform in full with his unwavering desire (which e is rarely if ever able to fulfill) to refrain from being annoying. This CFCJ is merely "static" or "noise" used to meet the conditions of a treasure. This would actually fit the fourth definition of being annoying quite will. Gaoler ThinMan! Put on your uniform! Judges! Don your silken robes and lift your wooden gavels! I have filed suit and stand, unmoving, waiting for your justice. I am still an Ackan, steady in my dedication to Acka, but I am a criminal in the most complete manner imaginable.

Suggested Penalty:

a) a DEDUCTION of 60 points from Pol Pot's score
b) a FINE of A$5000 payable Treasury.
c) a SENTENCE in the Gaol of 101 days
d) the TRANSFERENCE of one the trinket "Mr. Treen" to the initiator of the CFCJ.
e) a PUBLIC APOLOGY of 20 or more lines
g) the REMOVAL of Pol Pot from the Religious Caste
h) The IMPEACHMENT of Pol Pot from the office of Dungeon Master

Judge's Reasoning:

At the time this CFCJ was submitted the rule which governed the Crime of being Annoying was Rule 721 (Annoyances) which read in full:

"
I. Spam
Pursuing a game strategy which entails, as one of its effects, causing excessive amounts of messages to be sent to the public fora [in the judgement of a judge] is Annoying.

II. Malenkai's Loophole
Exploiting lexical equivalence to alter, or attempt to alter, the interpretation of a word or phrase in any Ackanomic document, [in the judgement of a judge], is Annoying.

III. New Player Embezzlement
Intentionally causing a newbie to lose currency, is Annoying. It is also Evil.

IV. Disrespecting the Harfers
Showing a lack of respect to the officers who harf the game when they are acting in their capacity as officers, or refusing to acknowledge the work done by such functional officers is Annoying. It is also very impolite.

V. Concealing Public Messages
Attempting through the format of a public message (e.g. excessive whitespace) to conceal a public action is Annoying. "

I. On 24 of Nov 1998 Trent sent 5 messages to the main list none of which had substantially similar effect nor did they result in any needless harfing.
II. None of the messages attempted to exploit Malenkai's Loophole.
III. E created one trinket; otherwise no A$ were transferred at all.
IV. No lack of respect was shown to the harfers nor was any acknowledgement of harfing effort required.
V. All of eir public actions on that day were quite obvious.

I can find no evidence of Trent having been Annoying on 11th of Nov.

This CFCJ is ruled FALSE.

Call for Criminal Judgment 178 - Dec 7, 1998
Subject: Count Tabula non-performance
Initiator: Trent (sent Dec 7 1998, 12:47 Acka)
1st Judge: Euphrates
2nd Judge: r-attila the farce
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

Studge Committed the Crime of Non-Performance on Dec 5

Reasoning:

E also committed the crime on the 4th and the 8th.

I called for an election for the empty grey council seat on Dec 1. Count Tabula called it INCORRECTLY for a religious seat instead of a Worker Seat. Even if it had been called correctly, the nomination period would have ended on the fourth, and nominees should have been released for voting consideration on the 7th, two days ago.

I called for an election for deejay on Dec 5. Count Tabula failed to respond within 3 days.

In the duel between MTM and Jenny, both limericks were posted on Nov 29. There followed a 3 day voting period. The duel should have ended on the 2nd. Count Tabula has failed to do eir duty for 3 days in this instance.

Suggested Penalty:

a A$25 Fine payable to the treasury
Impeachment of Studge from the office of Count Tabula

Judge's Reasoning:

Initiator is right.

Actual Penalty:

A$50 fine payable to the treasury.

Call for Criminal Judgement 179 - February 21, 1999
Subject: /dev/joe/dev/joe/dev/joe/dev/joe/dev/joe
Initiator: K 2
Judge: Wild Card
Judgement: TRUE
Appellant: JT
1st Cortex: Amicus Draconis (JT and Slakko) (declined by JT)
2nd Cortex: /dev/cortex (/dev/joe and LaaLaa)
Judgement: FALSE
Appellant: else...if Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

/dev/joe has committed the Crime of Being Annoying.

Reasoning:

/dev/joe has submitted 5 _identical_ proposals to the public forum, the sole purpose of the multiple copies is to prevent interested players from presenting a united front. This is SPAM in rhymes with SCAM and it is ANNOYING!

Suggested Penalty:

One week in gaol [Although it is unlikely to prevent em from voting on the proposals, the more appropriate punishment of a Mannna deduction is not possible].

Judge's Reasoning:

The Initiator is correct in every respect.

Actual Penalty:

One week on gaol.

Appellant's Reasoning:

CFCJ 172 established that 12 proposals from a single player in a short span of time was not annoying. The fact that this was done with only 5 proposal (regardless of the content of the proposals) makes this much less of an offense. Since this does not rise to the level of annoying as set forth in that CFCJ, this should not have been judged as annoying.

There are also other suitable remedies within the rules to punish percieved abuses of percieved loopholes within the rules, namely scam hunts, and imho, that remedy should have been used in place.

Bronze Torch Reasoning (K 2):

I thought my earlier Bronze Torch reasoning addressed this.

Annoying is really a question of what constitutes excessive. 12 different proposals is not excessive - this is what CFCJ 172 found. The question now is - Does 5 identical proposals, which were also identical to the five proposals submitted just before them as well, constitute "excessive". If one proposal passes it has an effect, a player hardly need submit 5 identical proposals within infinitesimal of one another, unless they are pursuing a particular game strategy.... 5 proposals instead of 1 makes it excessive.

This is not a scam this is Annoying.

Cortex's Reasoning:

The Rule in question has already been quoted, but an important part of the meaning ignored. The rule says causing "excessive amounts of messages", not "excessive messages". Previous CFCJs have ruled that 12 proposals being sent almost at the same time does not constitute an offence under this class of annoyances. Therefore, 5 proposals, none of which were longer than the longest of the 12 proposals submitted earlier, cannot be "excessive amounts" of messages, regardless of their semantic content.

We fine the original Judge 10 points for not reading the relevant rule sufficiently carefully.

Appelant's Reasoning:

Rule 9-4 does not read "large amounts of messages," but "*excessive amounts of messages" (emphasis mine). The fundemental difference between CFCJ 179/180 and CFCJ 172 is the word "excessive." Webster defines excessive as "Characterized by, or exhibiting, excess; overmuch". In order to be annoying, the amount of information sent must be substantially out of alignment with the actual content. In CFCJ 172, although there were a substantial number of proposals, they were not excessive--they were several independant legitimate proposals. On the other hand the actions of JT and /dev/joe in 179/180 were a conspiracy to create a number of messages which failed to further the game of Ackanomic in any way. They served no legal, political, social, conceptual, or entertaining purpose. They were not harfy; they were not constructive; they were, most fundementally, an utter waste and abuse. This is exactly the sort of thing Annoying was instituted to create.

Slakko's reasoning merits response, since it is legitimate (although incorrect.) Both Cortices have adopted Slakko's reasoning that the word "amounts" means that the messages must be sufficiently long in order to be annoying. The simplest refutation would be the sending to the mail list of 10 messages empty except for a signature. This is vastly more Annoying than sending 20 long, well reasoned statements to the same list, even though the latter contained both more messages and more text. The operative word is still "excessive." In principle, even a few words could be annoying.

I note that, with a standard so broad, caution should be taken when applying it. I urge the Court, now and in the future, to be merciful regarding Annoyances. I humbly suggest that the defendant's penalty be limited to a payment of costs to K2, and that the Cortices not be penalized for a good, if imperfect, reasoning. I believe that no player should be penalized harshly for Annoyances except in the most extreme cases.

Supreme Court's Reasoning:

It is the court's opinion that what constitutes an 'excessive amount of messages' can not be decided solely on the number of messages involved. Rule 9-4 is worded in such a way that the only acceptable method of determining if a particular group of messages is an "excessive amount" is according to each player's opinion [The rule even states this, although in a way that has no semantic meaning] .

However, the majority of the court also feels that the contents of the messages should be as small a factor as possible in deciding whether or not they are considered excessive, as this could lead to calls of Annoyance based solely on a person's disagreement with the speech of another.

It is therefore the opinion of the majority of the supreme court (JT, Slakko, /dev/joe and Laa Laa) that the messages in question were not excessive. One justice (K 2) was in disagreement.

The supreme court upholds the verdict (FALSE) and fines the appellant 1 point.

Call for Criminal Judgement 180 - February 21, 1999
Subject: JTJTJTJTJTJT
Initiator: K 2
Judge: IdiotBoy
Judgement: TRUE
Appellant:/dev/joe
1st Cortex: /dev/cortex (/dev/joe and LaaLaa) (declined by /dev/joe)
2nd Cortex: Amicus Draconis (JT and Slakko)
Judgement: FALSE
Appellant: else...if
Judgement:

Statement:

JT has committed the Crime of Being Annoying.

Reasoning:

JT has submitted 6 _identical_ proposals to the public forum, the sole purpose of the multiple copies is to prevent interested players from presenting a united front. This is SPAM in rhymes with SCAM and it is ANNOYING!

Suggested Penalty

One week in gaol [Although it is unlikely to prevent em from voting on the proposals, the more appropriate punishment of a Mannna deduction is not possible].

Judge's Reasoning: Well, ja.

Actual Penalty:

SENTENCE of 7 days in Gaol.

TRASNFERENCE of an amount of A$ equal to the SHF from JT to the initiator of this CFCJ.

Appellant's Reasoning:

CFCJ 172 established that submitting a number of proposals more than twice what the accused submitted is not Being Annoying. Also, e only submitted 5 proposals.

Bronze Torch Reasoning (K 2):

CFCJ 172 may have established that submitting 12 proposals (3360, 3364, 3365, 3372-3381) is not Annoying, however, there are a certain number of differences between that event and the one(s) currently under scrutiny, specifically CFCJ dealt with 12 substantially different proposals, while this situation involves identical proposals, the submission of which was apparently intentional (no attempt has been made to retract the superfluous proposals and the proposals in question are also identical to an earlier sequence made by /dev/joe (indicating at least some premeditation)).

[It is Annoying to be] Pursuing a game strategy... causing excessive amounts of messages...

Given that the submission of 5 copies was not an accident (i.e. the defendant was actively pursuing this particular game strategy), the remaining question is - was the submission of 5 copies an excessive number of messages?. Rule 2 permits a single accepted proposal to have an effect; it doesn't require that 5 identical proposals to be accepted before any of them to have an effect - it follows that the submission of a single copy of a proposal is sufficient (in the absence of extraordinary circumstance). 4 extra copies of a proposal. Deliberate - Yes. Excessive -Yes. Annoying?

Cortex's Reasoning:

We fine the original Judge 10 points for not reading the relevant rule sufficiently carefully.

Appellant's Reasoning:

Rather than repeat my reasoning, I merely not that it is identical to what I submitted for CFCJ 179.

Supreme Court's Reasoning:

It is therefore the opinion of the majority of the supreme court (JT, Slakko, /dev/joe and Laa Laa) that the messages in question were not excessive. One justice (K 2) was in disagreement.

The supreme court upholds the verdict (FALSE) and fines the appellant 1 point.

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