Call For Judgement Archive (611-625)


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Call for Judgement 611 - June 9, 1998
Subject: CFJ vs CFCJ
Initiator: Slakko (June 9th, 03:21 Acka)
Judge: Niccolo Flychuck (Selected June 9th, 12:50 Acka) (declined)
2nd Judge: Wild Card (Selected June 11, 9:49 Acka) (declined)
3rd Judge: else...if (Selected June 11, 11:00 Acka)
Verdict: TRUE
Appealed by JT (Appealed on June 14 1998 14:38 Acka)
Cortex: Cortex of the Golden Frog (Saaremaa and Mr. Tambourine Man with Dennis and Edna acting as justice for Mr. Tambourine Man)
Verdict: TRUE
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. See reasoning. ]

Statement:

The statements which have been distributed by JT labelled as CFCJ 166 and CFCJ 167 are not, in fact, CFCJs.

Initiator's Reasoning:

Both of these so-called CFCJs violated Rule 710, as they attempted to convict someone of a Crime on the day they committed it. Rule 710 specifies that the date listed on the CFCJ must be between 1 and 30 days prior to the current date.

Judge's Reasoning:

The initiator is correct in his reasoning. Both alleged CFCJ's were submitted on the same day the crime took place, and therefore were not CFCJ's. This leads to the question of what they actually are. Assuming that both initiators did indeed clearly distinguish them from CFJ's, the only possible decision is that they were pieces of random e-mail which were accidentally confused with CFCJ submissions.
Appealer's Reasoning:
According to the headers from the submission of the alleged CFJC 166, the recieved header reads as follows.
>Received: from mail.itw.net (mail.itw.net [206.138.122.6]) > by dragoncat.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA09801 > for <jtraub@dragoncat.net>; Sun, 7 Jun 1998 21:10:41 -0700
The time of relevance here is Sun, 7 Jun 1998 21:10:41 -0700.
This is 00:10 Jun 8 in Acka time.
Similarly for the alleged CFCJ 167, the headers read:
>Received: from edtntnt1-port-145.telusplanet.net
>(alfvaen@edtntnt2-port-9.agt.net [209.115.133.9])
>        by dragoncat.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA09912
>        for <jtraub@dragoncat.net>; Sun, 7 Jun 1998 21:52:46 -0700
with the relevant time being 00:52 Jun 8 in Acka time.
The incorrect times reported in the CFCJs which caused this discussion were erroneously reported by myself by not correctly converting the above times into Acka time. This mistake has been corrected in the archives.
I would urge that the court overturn this decision.
Supreme Cortex's Reasoning:
It appears to be game custom that a forwarded message from another player to the main forum constitutes a public message by the original player. It least the rules are being interpreted that way w.r.t the CotC, Mr. Tambourine Man, going on vacation on 6/6/98, 00:49 acka time.
Later that day, at 18:09, Alfvaen wrote:
> If it is the case that Mr. Tambourine Man is on Vacation, then I appoint
> JT Acting Clerk of the Courts.  Someone submit a thread-dependent CFJ
> about whether or not MTM is on Vacation to em.  :-)
This didn't have any effect, as Alfvaen has no power to appoint an acting CotC in the stead of a vacationing one. It has been less than 14 days between the time this action was attempted and the time this CFJ was called which questions, in part, the effect of that attempted action, so the retroactivity clause does not fix it. Thus the CFCJs in this CFJ's statement were never distributed by the CotC (or acting CotC Slakko*), thus they do not exist, thus the statement on which judgement was called is TRUE.
The Court also notes that all other apparent CFJs distributed since the CotC went on vacation do not exist either, including this one. Hence this "reasoning" is comments only, and there is no penalty to the appealer.
*As for why Slakko is acting CotC:
Rule 255 says:
> The duties of any offices held by the player shall be performed 
> by the Speaker or someone appointed by the Speaker, unless some other 
> rule provides for an Acting Officer or some other assignment (including 
> possible non-assignment) of these duties (or the office). 
Rule 403, though, provides for the acting officer in the case of a functional officer:
> (iii) A Functional Officer going on vacation shall be judged to have 
> vacated his Seat for the period of the vacation, after which he shall 
> hold the Seat once again. At his discretion, the President may appoint 
> a volunteer to fill an "Acting" role for a Functional Office vacated 
> by vacation. In this case, there shall be no action to fill the empty
> Seat. This section takes precedence over section (vi) of this Rule. 
> 
> (iv) Whenever a Functional Office has a vacant Seat, and there is 
> no Acting Officer for that Seat, the President is to be the Acting Officer
> for that Seat, unless the rules define another officer to be an Acting 
> Officer for that particular office. 
Note that rule 255 does not provide for an acting officer for *that particular office*, thus rule 403 satisfies rule 255's requirement, and they are not, in fact, deferring to each other, and the President is acting CotC because e has not appointed anyone. Moreover, this is how it has been done for a long time, thus a preponderance of the game custom supports this interpretation.


Call For Judgement 612 - June 9, 1998
Subject: Wildcard's forked tongue
Initiator: Rufus (Sent June 9th, 18:39 Acka)
Judge: Joe Java (Selected June 9th, 18:50 Acka)
Verdict: FALSE
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. For info, see what purported to be CFJ 611 ]
Statement:
Wild Card does not have a forked tonue.
Initiator's Reasoning:
Entirely lexographical. Rule 854 reads, in part, "Current available mutations: " and lists extra heads, pointy ears, and wings. Then it says "Other mutations may be developed in the future, and if they are, they should be added to this rule." Following that, there is some gibberish about forked tongue.
Judge's Reasoning:
The statement in rule 854 that states: "Other mutations may be developed in the future, and if they are, they should be added to this rule." does not signify a stopping point of the list of possible mutations but merely a comment suggesting that additions can be made to the rule. It is redundant of course anyway considering that all rules are up from addition by normal Ackan rules. So Wild Card does have a forked tongue (barring any other restrictions as per normal Ackan rules and procedures).


Call For Judgement 613 - June 10, 1998
Subject: Wild Card's weirdness
Initiator: Wild Card (Sent June 10th, 09:47 Acka)
Judge: Ayla (Selected June 10th, 12:40 Acka)
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. For info, see what purported to be CFJ 611 ]
Statement:
Wild Card became Weird at 09:15:59 EDT.
Reasoning:
He didn't have A$79 to pay the fine, and neither did any organisation that he was a member of.
Whilst rufus has claimed that his prior conversion of A$ to trinkets failed it was an unambiguous action - since if the N's are allowed to be negative there is no unique minimum...


Call For Judgement 614 - June 12, 1998
Subject: Zaknafien
Initiator: Alfvaen (Sent June 12, 00:18 Acka)
Judge: K 2 (Selected June 12, 00:23 Acka)
Verdict: False
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. For info, see what purported to be CFJ 611 ]
Statement:
There exists a player with the Ackanomic name Zaknafien.
Initiator's Reasoning:
Rule 252, "Joining the Game" states: "A person wishing to join the game, and who cannot do so as a Returning player, should notify the Registrar, providing a valid email address, their real name, the legal Ackanomic name they wish to play under, and optionally the Ackanomic name of the current active player who convinced them to join the game or where they heard about the game. Upon them providing this information, should the requested name indeed be a legal Ackanomic name, the Registrar shall post a public message announcing the new player and providing their Ackanomic name, real name, and email address, and if the prospective player provided it, the optional information. Upon the posting of such an announcement, the person becomes registered as a player."
The person with email address <Zakdardn@aol.com> supplied, for "real name", the name "John". I'd like to know here whether or not this is sufficient for em to have joined. The fact that, for instance, Archie Leach joined supplying only the name "T. Miller", may be precedent for this. There are also some players listed in the archive without supplied real names, like WAMPHYRI, cobber, and, in fact, SonOfWu when e joined originally as Narcisse was listed with the name "Hapexamendios". However, it's possible that they joined at a time when the Rules were laxer on allowing new players to join--cobber on 3/27/96, Narcisse on 3/29/96, and WAMPHYRI on 4/10/96. So this might require some research.
Far be it from me to block Zaknafien--I do like that name--from joining, but this should be cleared up now.
Judge's Reasoning:
I was going to rule this False, but now you'll never know why :^p
Well, okay then. First of all precedence isn't an issue (or at least not in the way Alfvaen meant). Proposal 1552 on Wed 11 Dec 11:53 CST 1996 introduced the requirement for a 'real name' when registering. Prior to that Proposal 571 - Sat Mar 30 8:00am CST 1996 introduced the requirement for a 'real name', but only when changing ackanomic names...
That said, there is at least one player who has been refused registration for not supplying eir surname... me. So at least in the current registrar's application of the rule (and since the registrar is only player to actually apply that rule) game custom would indicate that if one has both a first and surname then they both need to be supplied. Given that subsequent events have revealed this to be the case for Zaknafein Dourden, e was not registered until the second announcement.
This makes Zaknafein Dourden roughly A$ 22 richer.


Call For Judgement 615 - June 14th, 1998
Subject: Museum win CWCFJ
Initiator: Slakko (Sent June 14th, 1998 04:00 Acka)
Judge: IdiotBoy (Selected June 14th, 1998 14:24 Acka)
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. For info, see what purported to be CFJ 611 ]
Statement:
Slakko achieved a Winning Condition within the last week.
Reasoning:
Well, just a few minutes ago (from the time this was sent), I sent a public message donating A$5001 worth of Trinkets to the Treasury. I have not achieved a Museum Winning Condition before, and hence I achieve a Winning Condition courtesy of the Museum Rule, Rule 850. (It says that I win the Cycle, but Rule 600 takes precedence and interprets it to mean achieving a Winning Condition instead).


Call for Judgement 616 - June 14th, 1998
Subject: Organization management of entities
Initiator: K 2 (Sent June 14th, 1998 09:04 Acka)
Judge: J. M. Bear (Selected June 14th, 1998 14:28 Acka)
Verdict: TRUE
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. For info, see what purported to be CFJ 611 ]
Statement:
The Order of the Razor Boomerang owns a Truthseeker Otzma Card.
Initiator's Reasoning:
On Sat, 06 Jun 1998 13:57:50 JT offered eir truthseeker and skeleton key cards to the Order of the Razor Boomerangs. On Sat, 06 Jun 1998 16:56:23 Hubert (as founder of that church) accepted those cards.
If the founder of a church is able to initiate and conclude an trade on behalf of eir church then The Order of the Razor Boomerang owns a Truthseeker Card, otherwise Joe Java is on Titan. (stunning logic ;)
Section 10 of rule 1301 states:
A Church may own and trade currency and Entities. If Church policy is silent about the managing the Church's Currency and Entities, then the Church Founder manages the Church's Currency and Entities.
"Managing the Church's Currency and Entities" implies both ability to initiate and accept trades which would affect the church's ownership. This is the interpretation which has been customarily applied to this sentence.
Assuming from Hubert's statement that "This happens" in eir acceptance means that Razor Policy either explicitly allows the founder to manage the church's entities or is silent, Hubert had the ability to accept, on behalf of the order, the trade offered by JT.
Judge's reasoning:
I judge this TRUE, because I agree with K 2's reasoning.


Call For Judgment 617 - June 14th, 1998
Subject: Razor Boomerangs chewing the Gumball
Initiator: 867-5309 (Sent June 14th, 1998 19:52 Acka)
Judge: Koxvolio (Selected June 14th, 1998 21:06 Acka) (declined)
2nd Judge: Slakko (Selected June 15th, 1998 14:43 Acka)
Verdict: False
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. For info, see what purported to be CFJ 611 ]
Statement:
The Razor Boomerangs chewed the Gumball on Thursday 21 May 1998.
Initiator's Reasoning:
This is another of those scope-of-Church-Policy CFJs. A while back (May 17, to be exact), I suggested that the Order of the Razor Boomerang petition to join the Razor Boomerangs. None of the other members approved this suggestion, so if it did not have the backing of Church Policy, which specified that any decision to be made by the Priesthood can be made unilaterally by the Founder, it did not happen. (For the record, all members of the OotRB are also Priests.) Hence, even though all members of the Political Party approved the OotRB's admission, it did not happen because the OotRB did not give its approval.
Thus, when on 21 May I suggested that the Razor Boomerangs chew the Gumball, all the other members approved (JT actively and Goldenmean and Joe Java through their proxies). Had the OotRB been a member, the chewing would have failed for want of the Order's approval.
So... if Church Policy cannot get an Organizational Action suggested by the Founder approved, the Boomerangs chewed the Gumball. If such is possible, it didn't. Quite a beautiful mess.
Judge's Reasoning:
I do not believe that the scope of Church Policy is relevant. Anyway, first of all we must establish whether or not it was possible for the Razor Boomerangs to Chew the Gumball.
Rule 903, Gumball, states that:
>There is a unique entity called the gumball which can be chewed only on
>alternate Wednesdays and Thursdays.

>For the purposes of this rule, alternate Wednesdays and Thursdays are
>defined as the second and fourth Wednesdays and the first and third
>Thursdays of each calendar month.
Rule 373, Public Actions, states that:
>The rules may specify that certain possible courses of play are public
>actions. Any active player may attempt any public action available to him
>or her simply by sending a public message specifying the action to be
>taken. However, if any information that is necessary to specify the
>action fully and unambiguously is left out of that message, then the
>attempt fails. [An attempt may also fail for other reasons.]

>If the rules specify that a certain course of play is available to a
>player or organization, but do not specify how that course of play is to
>be taken,
>then that course of play is a public action, and it is taken as described
>above.
Rule 373 also states that it defers to all other rules.
Rule 1005, Organizational Action, states that:
>An Organization can attempt actions. However, the process for an
>Organization to attempt an action is somewhat more complex than the same
>process for players. First, some member of the Organization sends a
>public message suggesting an action for the Organization to take. The
>suggestion must include the name of the Organization for which it is
>being suggested. The other members of the Organization may then
>approve of the suggestion or denounce it. If any member denounces the
>suggestion, it is voided.
This conflicts with Rule 373, in that Rule 373 states that public actions are taken "as described above", and the description "above" in Rule 373 only refers to players attempting actions, not permitting Organizations to attempt actions.
Rule 1005 says that it defers to all other Rules.
So Rule 373 tries to defer to Rule 1005, Rule 1005 to Rule 373. Rule 102 therefore steps in and forces Rule 373 to take precedence, at which point it then tries to defer to Rule 1005, but Rule 102 overrides this as well (as it conflicts with Rule 373), so Rule 373 does in fact take precedence over Rule 1005.
Hence no Organization can chew the Gumball, as chewing the Gumball is a public action defined by Rule 373 (and not specifically defined by Rule 905), hence there is no way for an Organization to perform that action, as Rule 373 states that the action may only be performed as described above, and the "above" description does not allow an Organization to perform the action.
Therefore, regardless of what happened with the Church of the Razor Boomerang, the Razor Boomerangs did not Chew the Gumball.
I judge FALSE.


Call For Judgement 618 - June 15th, 1998
Subject: Rule 340 again
Initiator: breadbox (Sent June 15th, 1998 07:06 Acka)
Judge: Slakko (Selected June 15th, 1998 10:24 Acka)
Verdict: TRUE
Appealed: rufus (Appealed on June 16th, 1998 10:32 Acka)
Cortex: Cortex of the Golden Frog (Saaremaa and Mr. Tambourine Man with Dennis and Edna acting for Mr. Tambourine Man) (Selected June 16th, 1998 11:17 Acka)
Verdict: TRUE
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. For info, see what purported to be CFJ 611 ]
Statement:
A short time after the adoption of Proposal 3194, the text in Rule 340 that read "{{The Gingham Wearer loses two points. Alfvaen gains two points. [He reminded me about the need to do this.]}}" was applied once and then deleted.
Initiator's Reasoning:
I have no firm argument at this point, and on the whole would rather have an official decision on the matter.
Once Proposal 3194 had passed, the text of Rule 340 no longer enjoyed blanket immunity from its own definition of self-deleting text. It seems pretty certain that the sentences quoted in this CFJ's statement then immediately qualified as such, and were subsequently deleted.
What I'm wondering is, were they applied once before being deleted? One could argue that, certainly, they weren't self-deleting text before, and they are now, so they would have to be applied before being deleted. But one could also argue that they already had been applied, quite some time before. And in fact a prior CFJ has already determined that they were applied, at that time, and would not be applied again.
It may be worth noting that the proposal immediately following this one altered Rule 205, which might have otherwise had had an effect on this situation, but I believe no longer does. (Of course, I could be wrong. These rule changes are less than fifteen minutes old as I write this, so I may well have overlooked something.)
Judge's Reasoning:
When Proposal 3194 was adopted, it amended Rule 340, and changed the text responsible for deleting self-deleting text. Therefore, any application of the self-deleting text under the new rules would be distinct from that required under the rule prior to its amendment. Therefore, the new Rule 340 saw the self-deleting text, applied it once, then deleted it..
Hence I judge TRUE.
Appealer's Reasoning:
I appeal this. I just don't think that this is sound reasoning. The {{}} text has to be inserted into the rule before itr is applied, correct? if that is the case, it was self-deleting text in 340, which at the time, was not self-deleting. It may have only been applied once, but that is a different issue.
Supreme Cortex's Reasoning:
We agree with CFJ 606 but think the appropriate reasoning is more along these lines: The game custom in support of 606, and the single application of rule text comes from language such as: 'This rule creates the magic potato', or 'This rule creates an entity known as the voting gnome', or 'X hereby exists' blah blah blah. There has been plenty of this over the years, and most likely there still is, and it is clear that such language does not create infinite instances of those things.
We do, however, also agree with the original judge in this special case, solely because the definition of self-deleting text is scoped to include the text and the brackets, and the rule specifically applies the self-deleting text's content, which was just defined as such by the recent amendment. The appealer's reasoning is not relevant; there is no requirement that {{text}} be "inserted" to be self-deleting text.


Call For Judgement 619 - June 15th, 1998
Subject: Crazy French Scotsman attempt
Initiator: Wild Card (Sent June 15th, 1998 18:33 Acka)
Judge: JT (Selected June 15th, 1998 18:46 Acka)
Verdict: Invalid
[ This is not an official CFJ but merely an opinion. For info, see what purported to be CFJ 611 ]
Statement:
The above quoted attempt of the player who's real name is Jack Rudd to use the Crazy French Scotsman rule failed, due to lack of ingenuity within eir complaint.
Initiator's Reasoning:
NONE.
Judge's Reasoning:
Unfortunately, the statement above is not a 'clear' statement, referencing something which was not included as part of the CFJ and properly should have been part of the reasoning of the CFJ. Therefore, this CFJ is invalid.


Call For Judgement 611a - June 17 1998
Initiator: Slakko (sent June 17, 1998 01:42 Acka)
Subject: Museum Cycle Win
Judge: Fortunato
Judgement: TRUE
Statement:
Slakko achieved a Winning Condition within the last week.
Initiator's Reasoning:
Well, just a few minutes ago (from the time this was sent), I sent a public message donating A$5001 worth of Trinkets to the Treasury. I have not achieved a Museum Winning Condition before, and hence I achieve a Winning Condition courtesy of the Museum Rule, Rule 850. (It says that I win the Cycle, but Rule 600 takes precedence and interprets it to mean achieving a Winning Condition instead).
Judge's Reasoning:
None


Call for Judgement 620 - June 18th 1998
Subject: Existence of Zaknafien
Initiator: Alfvaen (sent June 18, 1998, 10:08 Acka)
Judge: Koxvolio (chosen June 18, 1998, 14:29 Acka)
2nd Judge: Slakko (chosen June 19, 1998, 15:15 Acka)
Judgement: FALSE
Statement:
At 23:59 Ackatime on June 10, 1998, there existed a player with the Ackanomic name Zaknafien.
Initiator's Reasoning:
Rule 252, "Joining the Game" states: "A person wishing to join the game, and who cannot do so as a Returning player, should notify the Registrar, providing a valid email address, their real name, the legal Ackanomic name they wish to play under, and optionally the Ackanomic name of the current active player who convinced them to join the game or where they heard about the game. Upon them providing this information, should the requested name indeed be a legal Ackanomic name, the Registrar shall post a public message announcing the new player and providing their Ackanomic name, real name, and email address, and if the prospective player provided it, the optional information. Upon the posting of such an announcement, the person becomes registered as a player."
The person with email address <Zakdardn@aol.com> supplied, for "real name", the name "John". I'd like to know here whether or not this is sufficient for em to have joined. The fact that, for instance, Archie Leach joined supplying only the name "T. Miller", may be precedent for this. There are also some players listed in the archive without supplied real names, like WAMPHYRI, cobber, and, in fact, SonOfWu when e joined originally as Narcisse was listed with the name "Hapexamendios". However, it's possible that they joined at a time when the Rules were laxer on allowing new players to join--cobber on 3/27/96, Narcisse on 3/29/96, and WAMPHYRI on 4/10/96. So this might require some research.
Far be it from me to block Zaknafien--I do like that name--from joining, but this should be cleared up now.
(Additional information: I posted the first message, with real name "John", announcing Zaknafien joining at 20:00 on June 10, 1998. The original version of this CFJ came out at least a day later. Also, as regards K 2, I may have just been confused by eir first and last name being the same. :-) Or maybe I'm just inconsistent...)
Judge's Reasoning:
K 2 had stated that e was initially refused registration because of an attempt to sign on with only a single name. This is the only relevant game behaviour dealing with this issue since the requirement for real names was tightened up. It therefore appears that a full name (or at the very least more than a single name) is necessary for a successful registration. Hence I judge FALSE.
Fortunately Zaknafien Dourden is now a player anyway.


Call For Judgement 621 - Jun 18, 1998
Subject: Timing of Self-Deleting Text
Initiator: saaremaa (sent Thu, 18 Jun 1998 20:40:42 Acka)
Judge: Slakko (selected Fri, 19 Jun 1998 03:32 Acka)
Judgement: TRUE
Statement:
If a proposal whose text is identical to the text labelled Proposal A in the reasoning accompaning this CFJ were accepted, (under the current rules and game state), the string "Mungo Jerry" would exist in the rules 1 second after the proposal's results were posted, assuming no other public messages were posted during the 2 seconds immediately following the posting of the proposal's results.
Initiator's Reasoning:
Proposal A:

"
I.  All instances of the string "Ackanomic" in the rules are
replaced by the string "Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz".

II.  Create a new rule with the following text delimited by BLAH:

BLAH
{{All instances of the string "Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz" in the rules
are replaced by the string "Mungo Jerry".}}
BLAH

III.  All instances of the string "Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz" in the rules
are replaced by the string "failure does not mean you may not try again"
"
Judge's Reasoning:
Rule 104 states that:
:If the proposal consisted of a list of one-time effects, such as changes
:to the rules, then those effects shall be applied, one at a time, in the
:order in which they appear in the proposal.
The proposal above has three one-time effects, to whit: the replacement of all instances of Ackanomic with Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz, the creation of a new rule, and the replacement of all instances of Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz with failure does not mean you may not try again. Hence these three effects are applied, one at a time, in order.
After effect I is applied, all instances of "Ackanomic" in the rules are replaced with "Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz". Given the current rulestate, the latter quoted phrase will appear at least once.
After effect II is applied, the rule will exist. However, there is the question of whether the self-deleting text is applied before or after the other effects of the proposal. Fortunately, this is irrelevant to the CFJ at hand.
If the self-deleting text is applied before effect III, then all instances of Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz in the rules will be changed to Mungo Jerry, and effect III will be null.
If the self-deleting text is applied after effect III, effect III will change all instances of Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz in the rules to "failure does not mean you may not try again". This includes the instance in the self-deleting text. Hence when the self-deleting text is applied, all instances of "failure does not mean you may not try again" (which replaced Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz) will be replaced by "Mungo Jerry".
Hence "Mungo Jerry" will appear in the rules after this proposal is accepted, regardless of whether the self-deleting text is applied before or after effect III of the proposal. The text will stay in the rules for at least 1 second given the assumption about a lack of public actions, under the current ruleset.
I therefore judge TRUE.


Call for Judgement 622 - June 19, 1998
Subject: Gadget Donation
Initiator: Vynd (sent June 19 1998, 10:30 Acka)
Judge: IdiotBoy (chosen June 19 1998, 15:43 Acka)
Verdict: TRUE
Statement:
It is possible under the current ruleset to donate Gadgets to the Cubical Earth Implementation Society.
Initiator's Reasoning:
I'm not sure. Rule 1319 says that a player may donate any "item" that they own to the CEIS. It never actually says that they can donate entities, let alone specific kinds of entities such as Gadgets. On the other hand, the preceding paragraph does list a number of Gadgets which the CEIS requires, and the following paragraph describes wht happens if all of the listed entities have been donated.
So there are two questions here: Are gadgets items, in which case they can clearly be donated? Even if gadgets aren't items, does the ret of the rule make it possible to donate gadgets to the CEIS?
Judge's Reasoning:
There are many places in the rules where the concept of "item" is used as a superset of the concept of "Entity." (viz. R505, R516)
(One could argue that they are used synonymously in some case. I see that as the degenerate case of the preceeding. And, yes, I only included this comment to get degenerate into my reasoning.)
Additionally, this judge can find no case in the rules where the concept of "ownership" is applied to anything which is not a Entity.
It is the opinion of this judge that rule 1319 allows players to donate any entities they own to the CEIS. As Gadgets are a subclass of Entities, they maybe be donated to the CEIS.


Call For Judgement 623 - June 19, 1998
Subject: Royal Frinking
Initiator: Alfvaen (sent June 19 1998, 22:46 Acka)
Judge: Niccolo Flychuck (chosen June 20 1998, 03:11 Acka)
2nd Judge: Joe Java (chosen June 21 1998, 03:43 Acka)
3rd Judge: Vynd (chosen June 22 1998, 03:04 Acka)
Judgement: FALSE
Statement:
Slakko did not receive a Boon of the Ancients on June 19th or 20th because of Rule 1390.2.
Initiator's Reasoning:
Slakko repeated five times the action of creating and frinking Right-Handed Grapefruit Juice on June 19th. Then e claimed that this satisfied the condition of the newly-created Rule 1390.2, of having frunk "5 Frinks which are defined as Royal".
Now RHGFJ is indeed defined as a Royal Frink by Rule 1390.2. However, I do not believe that the condition of Rule 1390.2 can be satisfied by drinking the same Royal Frink five times; it will have to wait on at least four other Frinks being defined as Royal. In other words, one can drink as many individual instances of RHGFJ as one likes, but they are all the same Royal Frink, and only count for one Royal Frink towards a Boon.
Judge's Reasoning:
I can find nothing in the Rules or game custom to guide my judgement on this matter. That being the case, I will rely on the common interpretation of the language used in the relevant Rules. This doesn't yield a particularly clearcut answer either, but given a choice between equally plausible inclusive and an exclusive interpretations of a phrase or word, my feeling is that the inclusive interpretation is the one that should be used. Thus each individual Right-handed Grapefruit Juice counts as a Royal Frink, and by drinking five of them Slakko did indeed receive a Random Boon of the Ancients. This CFJ is FALSE.


Call for Judgement 624 - June 20, 1998
Subject: Amending Return Dates
Initiator: Alfvaen (sent 20 June 1998, 00:19 Acka)
Judge: else...if (chosen 20 June 1998, 08:53 Acka)
Judgement: FALSE (given 23 Jun3 1998, 02:43 Acka)
Appealed by: saaremaa
Supreme Cortex: Golden Frog, /dev/joe and /dev/joe
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

Pandora's Expected Date of Return from Vacation is June 30, 1998.

Initiator's Reasoning:

On June 5, 1998, Pandora put emself on Vacation, "until the end of June". On June 19th, Pandora, while still on Vacation, posted "I shall return by Wednesday 8 July". Now, I consider this to either be a statement of general information, or an attempt to change the EDR. Now, I don't believe that the current Rules allow this, but who knows?

Judge's Reasoning:

Rule 255 says "A player should specify the expected duration of their vacation." It says nothing about when the date must be specified. Although a default vacation length is given, there is no indication that the duration cannot be changed. Rule 255 says that "The only thing a player on vacation may legally do is take himself off vacation and send public messages." Note that it is possible for a vacationing player to go on vacation, since all that is neccessary is sending a public request, NOT performing any kind of action. Specifying the return date also appears to require only the sending of a public message, so this is in fact a legitimate change, and Pandora's return date is July 8.

Appealer's comments:

> Initiator's Reasoning:
>
> On June 5, 1998, Pandora put emself on Vacation, "until the end of June".
> On June 19th, Pandora, while still on Vacation, posted "I shall return
> by Wednesday 8 July".  Now, I consider this to either be a statement of
> general information, or an attempt to change the EDR.  Now, I don't believe
> that the current Rules allow this, but who knows?

Key text of rule 255:

> The only thing a player on vacation may legally do is take himself off
> vacation and send public messages.

The only changes to the game state allowed while on vacation by the vacationing player are public messages and return from vacation. Changing the "EDR" would also be a change in the game state; the question is: which rule allows such a change? I'm not sure any rule describes a procedure to change the EDR, but lets assume one does, so that the more interesting point of this case can be examined. (If no rule describes a way, either implicitly or explictly, of manipulating the EDR by a player, vacationing or otherwise, the CFJ is trivially TRUE).

As an aside, I would also like to point out that previous CFJ(s) have established that public messages with inane or otherwise immaterial content are in fact changes to the game state.

Key part of the first Judge's reasoning:

> Specifying the return date also appears to require only the sending of
> a public message, so this is in fact a legitimate change,

So, changing the EDR is not an allowed game state change by the vacationing rule, but the public message that carries it is. The original Judge seemed to indicate that this sort of "tunneling" was allowed, and perhaps it is. Given this tunneling logic (and I apologize if I am misconstruing the first reasoning), it seems to me that any change to the game state that is done as a public action via a message allowed by the vacationing rule could be done by a vacationing player via this sort of public message tunneling (e.g., creating trinkets). I don't think so, because it is still the player, and not the public message, that is changing the game state, but who knows. If it is the message that is changing the game state, then perhaps this tunneling is legal after all. If this tunneling logic is off base (e.g. it is not legal to create trinkets while on vacation, but it is legal to change the EDR, I'd like to know how).

Supreme Cortex's reasoning:

The first /dev/joe points out that saaremaa is correct that there is no procedure defined in the rules for changing a vacationing player's expected duration of vacation. It is defined when the player goes on vacation and nothing allows it to be changed. Thus, the CFJ is TRUE.
The second /dev/joe considers saaremaa's comments regarding "tunneling" of actions by vacationing players by way of the ability to send public messages. After some thought, it seems that such tunneling can occur in situations where the rules say something like "when a player posts a public message with property {foo}, then {bar} happens". Here, the rules cause the thing to occur, and the only action by the player is the sending of the public message in question, which is allowed by R255. An example of this is in R961; a vacationing player who is in the Wilds who posts a public message may be heard by the B-Ack.
However, most rules which make things happen by players sending public messages do not work this way. Instead, they say the player may perform action {foo} by sending a public message {containing bar, or simply stating that they are doing foo}. In such cases, the Vacationing rule prevents the action (provided it has precedence over the other rule). It doesn't disallow the vacationing player from sending the message, but it prevents the player from doing the thing he is trying to do -- the message succeeds but the action fails to occur.
R255 says: "A player shall be considered 'on vacation' when he or she makes a public request that he or she desires to be on vacation." This is a little unclear, but it does look more like the "triggered" type of action which may be allowed to vacationing players by way of the tunneling mechanism. If so, it seems he would be able to choose a new expected return date for his new vacation.
At this point, the third /dev/joe steps in, and while the first two are trying to figure out where he came from, he points out that even if a vacationing player could go on vacation again, or could somehow get put on vacation again by the rules, this doesn't change his expected duration or end the first vacation, but merely gives him *another* one. This could not possibly lengthen the time before the player gets put on ice (but could shorten it). When a player has two expected durations for two vacations running concurrently, when the one which expires first does so, he is put on ice. If he is still on vacation when the second vacation's expected duration expires, he is put on ice again, which will not have any effect, as he is already on ice from the other vacation.
At this point a fourth /dev/joe joins the party, and the four of them consider the penalty to be imposed on the original judge. They note that the original judge started his reasoning with a fallacy -- he wrote "Rule 255 says 'A player should specify the expected duration of their vacation.' It says nothing about when the date must be specified." The rule states, immediately after this, "If the duration is not specified when they go on vacation, it is assumed to be 14 days." Clearly, if they do not specify it when they go on vacation, the rules do it for them -- the rules thus do say when the date must be specified. At this point, the four who were one cross their swords and become The One Who Was Four, and he takes his 4-times-magnified sword and whacks else...if for the maximum penalty allowed under the rules.


Call for Judgement 625 - June 20, 1998
Subject: Existence of Sin Rules
Initiator: saaremaa (sent June 20 1998, 15:06 Acka)
Judge: Fortunato (chosen June 20 1998, 18:02 Acka)
2nd Judge: IdiotBoy (deadbeat)
3rd Judge: Alfvaen
Judgement: UNDECIDED
1st Cortex: TEFKATSC (breadbox and ThinMan) (chosen Aug 02 1998, 10:55 Acka)
2nd Cortex: /dev/cortex (/dev/joe and Mr. Tambourine Man) (chosen Sep 5 1998, 06:19 Acka)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

There exists a rule whose title contains the string "The Deadly Sin of Annoying the Harfers".

Initiator's Reasoning:

[None]

Judge's Reasoning:

[None]

Cortex's Reasoning:

As was pointed out by JT on June 20th the hearing was never properly called, because (whatever TAWKNI Eric Plumb was named then) didn't cite the rule requiring the hearing in his message of June 8th. [This sidesteps the wonderful issue of what happened when a rule tried to add a rule to a rule suite that did not exist.]


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