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Call for Criminal Judgement 181 - August 26, 1999
Subject: Pol Pot being Annoying
Initiator: IdiotBoy
Judge: rufus
Judgement: TRUE
Appellant: else...if
1st Cortex: Quoth the Raven (on vacation), Red Mao Gang
2nd Cortex: Slakko, Red Mao Gang
Judgement:
Statement:
Emporer Ai! Pedrito committed the Crime of Malpractice.
Reasoning:
His harfing of P4330 was maliciously incorrect.
Suggested Penalty:
A Gaol SENTENCE of 365 days.
A FINE of A$1000
Judge's Reasoning:
I don't believe that EAP acted maliciously. He did over step his bounds as rule harfer. While it is true that the proposals effects are odd as written, it unambiguously specifies the wrong sentence. Proposals have no intent except what is encoded into them. For the rule harfer to assume that E knows what to do is a dangerous precedent. People vote on proposals because of their text, not because they think that the rule harfer will harf them differently. I fine EAP 1 point. And a llama.
Appellant's Reasoning:
I disagree with rufus' statement the EAP overstepped his bounds. Ackanomic has a long tradition of interpreting the meaning of rules when it was unambiguous--that is, in fact, the purpose of the rule which overlooks unambiguous errors. Noone can deny that the author of the proposal intended it to work as EAP harfed it. Indeed the rule changed after the proposal was made; had that not happened the proposal would have worked correctly.
I claim that even the players who say the author's intent did not come through, or that the proposal clearly specified something contrary to the author's intent, are secretly aware that the author did intend for the proposal to do what EAP did. That is the definition of unambiguous. rufus says that people vote on proposals because of their text. Perhaps he does, but if so he is probably alone. Noone checked the rule when they voted to make sure that the right sentence was being deleted; they understood that there it was an equivalent sentence which would be removed to make room for the new one.
What EAP has attempted to do is certainly not new; at most it is a slight extension of what has always been done. Even Idiotboy, as Rule-Harfer, declined to remove a period once when a proposal said it should be. He did so because he understood, like all Ackans did, that the author's intent was unambiguous.
Finally, I would like to appeal to the Court on the basis of what I believe is the most fundemental principle of Ackanomic: fun. Ackanomic is still a game, and it is still played for the sake of enjoyment. There is nothing to be gained by insisting that we wait a week for another proposal to tweak one sentence. All Ackans know, even if they will not admit it, that there is only one logical interpretation of 4330. Ackanomic has always been tolerant of small mistakes; I hope the Court will not change that.
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