Call For Judgement Archive (701-715)


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Call for Judgement 701 - November 19, 1998
Subject: Chorg Creation
Initiator: Pol Pot (sent Nov 19 1998, 06:40 Acka)
Judge: r-attila the farce
Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

Slakko owns a Spellbook of Chorg

Reasoning:

I personally think this should be ruled false, but i haven't given the involved rules careful perusal. Slakko tried to create one with an Acme InstaGadget Otzma Card, and did not spend any money. There has been one auction of a SBoC of the type mentioned in the Instagadget. However, it ended without any bids, and so the auctioneer (Malenkai) got it by default without paying any money. Whether this satisfies the Instagadget is my question. Note that the result of this CFJ will also probably also apply to JT's similar use of an Instagadget to create a SBoC 2 days ago.

Judge's Reasoning:

Not only is this point moot because K2 has provided me with logs that show that Slakko has never ever had an OC instagadget but i tend to side with the fact that since an SBoC has never been "sold" at auction the price would currently be A$500


Call for Judgement 702 - November 21, 1998
Subject: Senate Removal and Organization Links
Initiator: Vynd (sent Nov 21 1998, 00:26 Acka)
Judge: r-attila the farce
Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

Slakko is a Senator.

Reasoning:

The truth of this statement depends on the effects of Proposal 3724. As a one time effect, that proposal caused all players who were in an organization(s) which had an H similarity of 75% or more with another organization(s) to be removed from those organizations. Rule 411 Senate states that "The Senators are collectively a Unique Organization known as the Senate." Thus the Senate is an org, and was subject to the effects of proposal 3724. There were only two Senators at the time proposal 3724 passed, Slakko and Thomas Jute. This meant that the Senate had 100% H similarity with the Grey Council, and therefore Slakko and Thomas Jute were removed from the organization of the Senate. What, exactly, does this mean? There seems to be two possibilities. One is that the Senators were removed from the Senate, but they remained Senators. In this case, they would immediately become members of the Senate again, because the Senate is by definition the collective Senators. The other possibility is that the Senators were not only removed from the Senate organization, but from their seats as Senators. I believe that the first possibility is the correct one. Nothing in Proposal 3724 explicitly states that the Senators are removed from their offices. While the Senate itself is an org, the offices that make it up are not. If being a Senator was somehow contingent on being a member of the Senate, I might be inclined to accept the second posibility I have mentioned, but since the opposite is the case I see no reason to believe that being removed from the Senate automatically causes one to lose the Office of Senator.

Bronze Torch Reasoning (ThinMan):

Rule 411 establishes an extremely tight connection between the Senators and the Senate. So tight, in fact, that I don't see how it is possible for any player to ever be a Senator but not a member of the Senate. Rule 411 doesn't just say that all Senators are members of the Senate, it says that the Senate _is_ the collective Senators. This is the same section that the submitter (and others) have argued puts Senators back in the Senate. The submitter wrote "If being a Senator was somehow contingent on being a member of the Senate, I might be inclined to accept [that the Senators lost their seats when P3724 was accepted]." I claim that there is more than contingency, here -- there is identity. By rule 411, being a Senator and being a member of the Senate are the SAME THING.

Judges Reasoning:

This point is moot now so if you dont want to read more stop now. I think that the office and the org are to closely linked so that if you take away one then you take away both so slakko loses his office.


Call for Judgement 703 - November 21, 1998
Subject: Missed Cycle Win CWCFJ
Initiator: Alfvaen (sent Nov 21 1998, 00:44 Acka)
Judge: r-attila the farce
Judgement:TRUE

Statement:

Alfvaen has gained a winning condition during the game of Ackanomic.

Reasoning:

This is a Cycle-Win CFJ, as stated in Rule 599. Sometime before the recent destruction of Cheeses when /dev/joe achieved a Winning Condition due to Rule 611, I had five cheeses, although I did not realize that I had the Cheddar until afterward. Having held, possibly among others, the offices of Trinket-Harfer, Web-Harfer, Archaeologist, Financier, Registrar, Speaker, Undead-Harfer, Swinger for Metamorph, Praetor, Illuminatus, Deejay, and Justice after the passage of Proposal 2716, I had an Edam. Having won games of Fictionary, Ghost, and Viruses since the passage of the same Proposal, I had a Gouda. Having been granted a Brie due to not having had a CFCJ judged TRUE against me(the original means of getting one), and not having lost it since either by CFCJ or by Duel, I had a Brie. Having had Proposals 2774, 2776, 2787, 2797, 2798, 2807, 2808, 2842, 2845, and 2865(and, for that matter, 19 more)accepted with no intervening rejections, or even retractions, I had a Stilton. Having had Harfy Proposals 2915, 3347, and 3484 accepted, I had a Cheddar. (Had I but known...) These facts are all fairly easy to verify, so I don't anticipate any trouble here.

Judge's Reasoning:

The best part about ample proof is that I dont have to create more.


Call for Judgement 704 - November 21, 1998
Subject: Leaving on acka-research
Initiator: Wild Card (sent Nov 21 1998, 10:02 Acka)
Judge: Pol Pot (Thread Alpha)
Judge: K 2 (Thread Beta)
Judgement: FALSE-alpha
Appellant: Vynd-alpha
Cortex: Cortez's Courtly Cortege (Alfvaen and Slakko)-alpha
Judgement:FALSE-alpha

Statement:

The player known as Pol Pot left acka (and became on Ice) on Saturday 21st November 1998.

Reasoning:

He posted this to acka-research@muppetlabs.com
On Sat, 21 Nov 1998, Gabe Drummond-Cole wrote:
> I give all my money to Vynd. I resign from all my offices. I leave acka.

Judge's Reasoning:

In the thread where i am able to judge this, it is trivially false.

Appellant's Reasoning:

Show me the money!

Cortex Reasoning:

The question here is this: In a thread which only exists if the CFJ is ruled FALSE, is it possible to rule the CFJ TRUE? The answer is yes, since one way to end a thread split is to have a thread invalidate itself.

The Rules, however, are quite clear on the matter. Rule 254 states that one may leave by posting a public message to that effect. Rule 370(which should now perhaps be renamed, since its scope has been expanded)states that if a message is sent to a forum named in the Postal Code, then it is a public message only if the Postal Code says that it is. The Postal Code stated that no message sent to acka-research was a public message.

Therefore the entity formerly known as Pol Pot did not successfully leave the game. [I personally feel that this contravenes Rule 101's statement that "A player always has the option to leave the game of Ackanomic", but someone else can figure out how to fix it if e wishes.]

The appellant is fined 15 points--it is understandable to want to appeal a CFJ whose reasoning is as flawed as the original judge's was here, but a proper judgement was not hard to construct, so this appeal was really rather frivolous.


Call for Judgement 705 - November 21, 1998
Subject: JAM Join
Initiator: Pol Pot (sent Nov 21 1998, 19:00 Acka)
Judge: Thomas Jute
Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

Thomas Jute is a member of the Justified Ancients of Mummu

Reasoning:

I tried to let em in as founder... did it work? YOU decide

Judge's Reasoning:

R1301 says of Cults:
>8. a. If a Church ever has no Priest, or (Heaven Forbid!) fewer
>than zero Priests, or fewer than four members, it is transformed
>into a Cult.
>
>b. The Cult has the same name as the Church and retains ownership
>of all the assets and entities of the Church; however, it is
>impermissible for the Cult to trade or to use any Organizational
>Powers. This takes precedence over R1003.
>
>c. For purposes of membership, the Church Founder is considered a
>Priest.
>
>d. Any function that can be performed by a Priest, can also be
>performed by the Church Founder.
>
>e. Any Priest who leaves the a Church cease to a Priest of that
>Church. A Priest who is no longer a Priest of any Church
>ceases to be a Priest.
>
>f. A player who joins a Cult and was previously a Priest or a
>Founder of the Church that was transformed into that Cult,
>becomes a Priest of that Cult.
>
>g. If a Cult has at least four members, at least one of which is a
>Priest of that Cult, it can transform itself into a Church, as an
>Organizational Action.
>
>h. A Cult is an Organization.
>
>i. If the Founder of a Church ever leaves the Church by declaring
>it publicly or by leaving the game, the Church shall be
>considered "orphan" until it achieves the following conditions:
>
>(1) it has 5 or more members whose game status is Active
>
>(2) it has 3 or more Priests
>
>(3) at least one of its Priests has already read, while being a
>Priest, one of the Ackanomicon pages that refer to any of the
>following:
>
>(a) the Arcane Lore
>(b) Ancient Artefact
>(c) Long Lost Treasure
>
>When it happens all Founder's duties or authorities will be
>automatically transferred to the most Senior Priest, who shall
>make it public by posting a message with the words "Follow me all
>you members of <name>! Follow me and you will never get lost in
>the darkness!", where <name> is the name of the Church.
>
>If the Priest who first read the Ackanomicon pages listed above is
>not the Senior Priest, the Senior Priest the Senior Priest is
>encouraged to give this Priest a gift of eir (the Senior Priest's)
>choice, like a Trinket, for example.
>
>If a Transfigured player is not considered a priest in any of the
>Church or Cults of which he is a member, then its Founder must
>make them a Priest within 7 days.

Each clause is a separate idea which changes the permissibility of any given action as the clause indicates. Just because a clause is next to other clauses, it does not change its meaning; except where it is next to another and is its logical continuation (as in the last three paragraphs of the quote above).

Thus, Founders do not have their normal churchly abilities with cults unless they are specifically granted them for Cults: which I do not see authotized anywhere.

I think this is enough to justify the ruling of FALSE.

Regarding Subsection C, it does not seem to extend the powers of the Founder, rather it seems to me to limit the Founder's abilities (as a logical continuation of B which deals with the trasition of Cults to Churches). It indicates that in the transition from Church to Cult the Founder's powers (such that a founder exists) are circumscribed as those of a priest in respect a Cult.

For that matter E then removes Pol Pot from "cult JAM"'s priesthood because of the way the timing of his removal worked.

Regarding JT's earlier comments, his alternate interpretations might persuade me that, implicitly, Cults are types of Churches if I were an activist Judge. For the puposes of nomic, however I am not. The nature of nomic is such that the rules should mean what they say and say what they mean: because it is so easy to modify their texts, we should deal with what their texts say until we do, in fact change them.

And just for the record: All this is important because Pol Pot tried to let Thomas Jute into cult JAM as founder despite the fact that Pol Pot had been kicked out too. His status as founder and abilites thereof were therefore questioned by questioning Thomas Jute's entry.


Call for Judgement 706 - November 23, 1998
Subject: Church Policy PWCFJ Take 2
Initiator: Pol Pot (sent Nov 23 1998, 05:31 Acka)
1st Judge: Thomas Jute
2nd Judge: rufus
3rd Judge: ThinMan
Judgement:FALSE
Appellant: Trent
Cortex: Amicus Draconis
Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

The legality of Pol Pot's donation of Alice in Wonderland to They Might Be About to Win a Cycle cannot be determined with finality.

Reasoning:

this is a paradox win CFJ

Rule 1301 says:

c. A Player who disobeys the Church Policy of a Church of which he or she is a member is guilty of Iconoclasm, which is a Crime. It is impermissible for a Player to take a game action which constitutes Iconoclasm if he or she has any legal alternative which would not constitute Iconoclasm. [That is, Iconoclasm normally doesn't happen unless there is no alternative. It is possible for a player to commit Iconoclasm by inaction, though.]

Because the Church Policy is continually flipping back and forth between requiring and not allowing its members to donate such trinkets to the Church, it is impossible to determine with finality which state the game was in when I attempted to donate the trinket.

Judge's Reasoning:

The court agrees with the submitter that it impossible to determine what the Church Policy was when he attempted to donate the trinket. However, this is not a matter of legality at all. According to rule 701 (Crime): To perform an action specified by the Rules to be Illegal is the Crime
of Illegal Action. An action specified by the Rules to be "impermissible"
is, by contrast, impossible. Although such an action does not occur it is>BR? not in itself a crime.

In setting up a contrast between the illegal and the impermissable, Rule 701 establishes that impermissible does not imply illegal. To the contrary -- it is the Court's interpretation of the last (somewhat unclear) sentence quoted above that an action being impermissable does not cause attempts to perform that action to be Crimes. As the rule specified just before that to perform an illegal action is a Crime, it follows that to attempt to perform an impermissable action is not illegal.

In reviewing this case the Court considered that there may be a precedence argument that would have the donation occur even if impermissable. The Court has not and will not decide that issue, for it is not relevant to the case. There are several reasons why the attempt to donate the trinket might fail, and it may be impossible to determine whether or not the attempt succeeded, but failed attempts to perform actions have never been considered illegal in Ackanomic, and successful attempts are certainly legal. The CFJ statement is FALSE.

Appellant's Reasoning:

If an action does not occur, its legality is nonexistent. This means that the legality of an indeterminately permissable action is indeterminate.

ThinMan's dichotomy into legal/illegal actions as per Rule 701 is specifically oriented toward crime. Other meanings of the word 'illegal' pervade the rules (examples in Rules 342, 620, and throughout the Party Chess and subgame Rules).

For either of these two reasons, the CFJ should therefore be overturned to TRUE

Bronze Torch Reasoning (K2):

This CFJ, being a PW-CFJ, alleges that that the legality of a player action that would affect the game state cannot be determined with finality [Rule 602]. The question is who or what is unable to determine the action with finality? The players of Ackanomic? The rules and the game state may only be changed as described in the rules [Rule 101], so the beliefs of the players of Ackanomic is irrelevant in so far as the rules are concerned. Further more since a cfj, is an assertion about the rules, the facts, or their interpretation [Rule 211] it is therefor implicit that the action must be indeterminate according/from the view point of the rules if this CFJ is to be ruled true.

It is known that the org policy was in one of two states with an infinitesimal transition time between those states - that is Trent's action was either legal or illegal according to the rules. While the players of Ackanomic are unable to determine the state of the org policy the the rules were able to. This is analogous to the thread split situation where, from the player perspective, there are two or more possible game states but from the rule's perspective the has only ever been one. As players the the action appears indeterminate since we have no way of deciding which state the org policy was in at the time the action was attempted, from the perspective of the rules, however, the org policy was in a particular state during the infinitesimal time Weisaupt required to perform the action and the game state would have proceeded accordingly based on that state [Rule 101]. From the perspective of the rules, which judgements must be in accordance with [Rule 215], the legality of the action could be determined with finality by the rules and in fact were. This CFJ is FALSE.

Bronze Torch Reasoning (ThinMan):

The appelant wrote:

>If an action does not occur, its legality is nonexistent. This means that
>the legality of an indeterminately permissable action is indeterminate.

The appellant's assertion is interesting, but not supportable. What about the legality of an action which has not yet occured, for instance? Or one which might not or will not occur? How about the wide variety of actions we see failing every week? Are these subject to PW CFJs? If they have no legality then they are neither at all legal nor at all illegal, and thus equally legal and illegal, right? I think not. Indeed, I observe that most PW CFJs in the past have revolved around hypothetical actions -- actions that were not even attempted and thus certainly did not occur -- but that did not prevent the vast majority of those CFJs from being ruled FALSE (therefore establishing that the hypothetical action at issue was either legal or illegal, as is generally clear from the reasoning). Not only, then, does game custom not support the appelant's claim -- it contradicts it.

>ThinMan's dichotomy into legal/illegal actions as per Rule 701 is
>specifically oriented toward crime. Other meanings of the word 'illegal'
>pervade the rules (examples in Rules 342, 620, and throughout the Party
>Chess and subgame Rules).

Rule 701 alone establishes the meaning of "impermissible" with repsect to player actions, therefore it is the appropriate resource for evaluating events which involve an impermissable actions. It is absurd to suggest that consideration of the context of the relevant provision is inappropriate.

Furthermore, it is a misrepresentation of the original reasoning to claim that it asserts a legal/illegal dichotomy in the first place. It doesn't even come close. Rather, it interprets rule 701 to establish that actions which are impermissable are not necessarilly illegal. That, in fact, an action's being impermissable does not by itself make that action illegal. The appellant has not challenged the propriety of that interpretation, nor do I think there are grounds for a challenge.

Moreover, the fact that rule 701 focuses on defining various sorts of Crimes does not invalidate it as a tool for evaluating the legality of player actions. Indeed, the specific passage cited in the original reasoning pertains to illegal and impermissable player actions, which would seem to make it quite germane to the issue at hand.

Cortex's Reasoning:

The Court agrees with the reasoning of the original judge. It is not possible to determine whether or not the action of donating Alice in Wonderland to They Might Be About To Win The Cycle (hereafter refered to as the Church) occurs. However, this does not prevent us from determining the legality of the action. There are only two possibilities. 1) The Church policy required the donation, in which case the donation was legal. 2) The Church policy forbid the donation, in which case it failed. This failed attempt at an action is also legal.

Thus regardless of the result of the success of Pol Pot's attempt to donate Alice in Wonderland to the Church, we know that the result was legal. This CFJ is FALSE. Let the appealer be fined 1 point.


Call for Judgement 707 - November 23, 1998 Subject: Cast Entry
Initiator: Pol Pot (sent Nov 23 1998, 13:40 Acka)
1st Judge: Thomas Jute
2nd Judge: r-attila the farce
Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

Else...If has been a member of a caste since e last joined Ackanomic

Reasoning:

I don't know whether this is true or not. When does a player coming off ice join a caste? Immediately? When the determination is made?

Judge's Reasoning:

Else...If became a member of a caste when the random determination was made.


Call for Judgement 708 - November 23, 1998
Subject: Caste Membership II
Initiator: Pol Pot (sent Nov 23 1998, 13:40 Acka)
1st Judge: rufus
2nd Judge: Wild Card
Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

Else...if is currently a member of a Caste.

Reasoning:

Clearly this CFJ is very closely related to my previous one. JT made 3 random determinations and told them to me as dungeon master, but did not post them publically. Were these valid in terms of letting people into their castes? Since the determinations were made and I was told what the results were after people were removed from their castes by 3724, did that removal affect else..if? Note that the same question applies to ethelred and Red Barn.

Judge's Reasoning:

None


Call for Judgement 709 - November 24, 1998
Subject: Indeterminate Treasure Value PWCFJ
Initiator: else...if (sent Nov 24 1998, 18:00 Acka)
1st Judge: SIRe
2nd Judge: Euphrates
3rd Judge: Trent
Judgement:FALSE

Statement:

It is equally legal and illegal for the Treasure-Harfer to mark the treasure described above (the one with the map reading "This sentence is false. If the previous sentence is true, else...if will find this treasure.") as found.

Reasoning:

First, this is a PWCFJ.
This is the same concept as PolPot's recent PW. The questions is whether this is close enough to be dismissed as invalid.

Bronze Torch Reasoning (Vynd):

This CFJ is INVALID in my opinion. It refers to a "treasure described above" which is not described anywhere in the CFJ.

Judge's Reasoning:

Rule 1217 says:

"Upon a player (who is not a map custodian with respect to the map in question) achieving the conditions for finding buried Treasure as specified by a Treasure Map, it is a duty of the map writer or a map custodian (if any exist) to make this fact, and the map, public (once they become aware of the condition being achieved, and final act that lead to the condition being achieved is publically knowable)."

The treasure map was a simple Eubulides' (Liar's) Paradox. The divisions into which statements are categorized (assuming that we're not in an extended liar's paradox) are the following three:

1) true statements
2) false statements
3) statements with no truth value.

I note that this is NOT a case, as was my PW attempt, where at any given moment, one of 1 or 2 was true; there is no temporal element involved here. The statement has no truth value. Going from there, I see one major problem: the final action that led to the finding of the treasure (the truth of the previous sentence) was not publicly knowable. Thus the treasure was never found.

The CFJ is FALSE

Furthermore, even if the treasure was findable, the best that could be hoped for would be INVALID. The very first Paradox Win was a liar's paradox (CFJ 184) and thus would be INVALID by rules, by rule 211, which says:

"Any Paradox Win CFJ which is based on the same sort of Paradox, in the judgement of the judge, as any Paradox Win CFJ ever judged TRUE, shall be judged Invalid."


Call for Judgment 710 - Dec 7, 1998
Subject: Thrall Win
Initiator: K 2 (sent Dec 7 1998, 7:12 Acka)
Judge: Wild Card
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

K 2 has an Unclaimed Winning Condition by Rule 615 (Win By World Domination).

Reasoning:

On 05 Dec 1998 23:52:19 with the acceptance of P3830 I enthralled rufus making me Overlord of 16 active players. There are currently 26 active players in ackanomic which means that I am overlord of more than 60% of all active players, by rule 615 this gives me a winning condition, or it would have if I didn't have the goose. At 07 Dec 1998 20:17:07, Trent, the acting CotC distributed a verdict of False on CFJ 709 - a PWCFJ. This caused the goose to befriended else...if.

Gooseless and with more than 60% of all active players enthralled to me, never having achieved a winning condition in this manner let alone won a cycle by it, rule 615 awarded me a winning condition.

The thralls were gained in the following manner (I have deleted those thralls which were lost to JT and Trent on 05 Dec 1998 12:10:58):

01 Dec 1998 04:11:26
3776: Euphrates -> K 2
3778: Robin Hood -> K 2
3779: JT -> K 2
3783; Alfvaen -> K 2
3786: /dev/joe -> K 2
3791; Thomas Jute -> K 2
3793: two-star -> K 2
3794: ThinMan -> K 2
3796: MTM. (True Name Eric Plumb) -> K 2
3799: Wild Card -> K 2

07 Dec 1998 09:56:14
3823: 404 Not Found -> K 2
3824: else...if -> K 2
3825: Jenny -> K 2
3827: Fortunato -> K 2
3828: IdiotBoy -> K 2
3830: rufus -> K 2

Judge's Reasoning:

Consensus


Call for Judgment 711a - Dec 9, 1998
Subject: Acronym References
Initiator: JT (sent Dec 9 1998, 12:22 Acka)
Judge: r-attila the farce
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:

JT and Trent are members of the Justified Ancients of Mummu.

Reasoning:

On Mon, 07 Dec 1998 19:37:49 -0500 (EST), two-star stated:
I admit Trent and JT into JAM.

The use of JAM in this context was perfectly understandable to mean 'The Cult of the Justified Ancients of Mummu', and in fact we have a fair amount of game custom (through use) that acronyms for organizations are in fact valid referents to that organization.

Since JAM was an unambiguous reference, and since two-star was the Priviledged Player, and the acceptance policy of Justified Ancients of Mummu was Priviledged Single Player, the acceptance happened.

Judge's Reasoning:

The Intiators logic is flawless


Call for Judgment 711b, 712a - Dec 9, 1998(due to a CotC error, this CFJ was refered to both as 711 and 712)
Subject: Corporate Trades
Initiator: ThinMan (sent Dec 9 1998, 16:40 Acka)
Judge: r-attila the farce
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

Corporation OPM has fewer than -1000 Ackadollars.

Reasoning:

I believe the CFJ statement to be false.

On Tuesday, Trent offered OPM the trinket "The Previous Sentence" in exchange for A$3000. At that time OPM had no ackadollars, I believe. Trent stated that he approved, and the other shareholders quickly followed suit.

1) I do not believe that any motion to accept the trade was actually
made. If it was not made then it could not have been passed.

2) If such a motion were assumed to have been implicitly made and
subsequently passed, it is not clear to me that that has the effect of
causing OPM to attempt to perform the action of accepting the trade offer.
In fact, I am inclined to believe that it does not. Rule 1003 certainly
does not specify that the passage of a motion causes any additional effect
whatsoever.

3) The rules regulate both the verb and the noun forms of "trade." In the
noun sense, certain trades are legal and others are illegal. In the verb
sense, certain entities are explicitly permitted to trade various other
entities. Both political parties and Churches are explicitly empowered
to make trades, but Corporations are not. I believe this means that
Corporations may not offer or accept trades.

4) Rule 515 does not specify what happens when any entity other than a player
accepts a trade. The game state may only change as specified by the
rules, so even if OPM had legally accepted the trade, nothing would have
happened.

Except for the trade with Trent, nothing occured which could have caused OPM to go into debt, certainly not more than A$1000 in debt. The CFJ statement is therefore false.

Judge's Reasoning:

I dont know about the other stuff but there was no motion ever made just an offer. Normaly this wouldn't be a problem but rule 1003 list the specific types of motions that can be made. Since none of these were made and no votes were cast this can never have happend.


Call for Judgment 712b - Dec 10, 1998
Subject: Threadsplits
Initiator: Wild Card (sent Dec 10 1998, 20:00 Acka)
Judge: ThinMan
Retracted

Statement:

The CFJ in which it is claimed that Pol Pot left Ackanomic is not currently under appeal in the thread in which he was the initial judge as of 1am GMT 11 December 1998.

Reasoning:

None


Call for Judgment 713 - Dec 13, 1998
Subject: Vulcan
Initiator: Trent (Sent Dec 13 1998, 5:51 Acka)
1st Judge: MTM
2nd Judge: ThinMan
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

There is currently a Rule 1

Reasoning:

Go look up vulcan. The vulcan rule renumbered automatically to 1. Some BAD mojo has gone down. The "former emperor" rule, in pre-slakko form, is still here as rule 2, and vulcan still has power to modify the ruleset.

Bronze Torch Reasoning (JT):

Rule 101 (at least it's still rule 101 today :) states:
No rule may generate any effect that applies retroactively to a time
before the generation of the effect, except when the illegality or
impossibility of a publically knowable change to the game state goes
unreported for at least 14 days, in which case the change is deemed to
have occurred retroactively to the time of the attempt. The preceding
does not apply to the case of events which occur automatically, but
whose occurrence is not (or erroneously) reported.

Even if Trent is correct and the changes to move the Vulcan rule away from rule #1 failed, there still exists no such rule today due to pragmatism. A rule change or renumbering is not an automatic occurence and so isn't exempted by the last sentance of the preceeding paragraph. Since the alleged Rule 1 has been percieved to not exist for much longer than 14 days, the first part of this paragraph kicks in and thus rule 1 doesn't exist and in fact the renumbering and reordering to make it into rule 1150 occured.

Therefore this CFJ should be judged False.

Judge's Reasoning:

It appears to me that Trent is correct insomuchas Vulcan action 108 shouldn't have worked as intended, because the rule establishing Vulcan's power would have renumbered itself back to 1 after being changed to 4. I state for the record that such a bollux was never Vulcan's intent. I assert, however, that this problem has long since been corrected by the pragmatism clause of rule 101:

No rule may generate any effect that applies retroactively to a time
before the generation of the effect, except when the illegality or
impossibility of a publically knowable change to the game state goes
unreported for at least 14 days, in which case the change is deemed to
have occurred retroactively to the time of the attempt. The preceding
does not apply to the case of events which occur automatically, but
whose occurrence is not (or erroneously) reported.

For this provision to be relevant, it is necessary to characterize one aspect or another of the events that we believed to have occured as a publicly knowable change to the game state. So what, exactly, constitutes the game state? It is defined only by custom. It includes all of the variables that define the, well, state of the game. Examples include almost everything tracked by the various harfers, from the existence and ownership of various entities to the proposals up for voting to the locations of all the players. It contains the history of the game. It, of course, contains all the past CFJ judgements, and some aspects of their reasonings. It contains, I claim, the ruleset.

In a game wherein the rules are fixed, there would be no reason to consider the rules part of the game state. Even in party chess, for example, where the rules may change during the game, those rule changes are not part of game play. In Nomic, however, changing the rules is part of game play, therefore it is my opinion that in Nomic, in Ackanomic in particular, the rules are an aspect of the game state.

In that context, then, what happened with regard to Vulcan action 108?

Part (1) occurred as described.

Part (2) worked, renumbering rule 1 to rule 4. Rule 4 then automatically renumbered itself to 1.

Part (3) worked as specified.

Part (4) worked, except that the number assigned to the new rule was "the least positive integer greater than all existing base rule numbers." (c.f. rule 303, but see below).

Part (5) failed, as there was no rule 4 at the time.

However, it was generally believed that part (4) worked exactly as specified and that part (5) succeed in repealing the rule that it was intended to repeal, and the game state was harfed accordingly. These are non-automatic changes to the rules (the direct results of an organizational action), and hence non-automatic changes to the game state, therefore they are covered by the pragmatism clause of rule 101. Two weeks, then, after Vulcan action 108 was performed, rule 101 caused two effects to occur retroactively: Vulcan's legacy rule received the number 1 despite there already being a rule 1, and the other rule 1 was repealed.

The CFJ statement is thus false.

Additional comments: it seems unlikely to me that the preceding argument has much applicability to the normal mode of rule modification (via proposal or rule). I would characterize the normal mode as being subject to the rule 101 exception for automatic actions.


Call for Judgment 714 - Dec 21, 1998
Subject: Diktat
Initiator: Trent (Sent Dec 21 1998, 6:04 Acka)
Judge: r-attila the firecat
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

Rule 23 has been modified at least once since it was instated

Reasoning:

I think this is false. Rule 23 says:
'These 4 may change the rules or game state as an organisational action.'

Rule 1003 says:
'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 'organization' described by rule 23 had no name, no name was mentioned, and thus the attempt to suggest amendment failed.

Judge's Reasoning:

The wording of rule 23 describes an Org but gives no name so it could be reffering to any org. Therefore it is to ambiguos and has almost no game effect.


Call for Judgment 715 - Jan 5, 1998
Subject: Royal Frinks
Initiator: Eric. (Sent Dec 28 1998, 21:00 Acka)
Judge: Trent
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

Ali'i Macadamia Nut Ale is a Royal Frink.

Reasoning:

"Ali'i" means "royal" or "royalty" in Hawaiian.

Judge's Reasoning:

Ali'i Macadamia Nut Ale is not defined as a frink. (although the act of frinking it is explicitly allowed by the rules) The Court can only say that the territory of the frink, and of frinking, needs to be explored in greater detail. Frinks are not a class of entity, and although one entity (RHGJ) is a frink, one non-entity (lager) is as well. The Court frowns on this as a throwback to a darker age, an age of implicit entityhood and of non-heirarchical rules. It is the hope of this Court that the voters of Ackanomic take it upon themselves to remedy this situation as soon as possible.


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