The OxNomicker
Issue 7, 14 March 1998
Editorial
Gameplay
Referendux
Judgements
Editorial
So, this is what the second OxNomicker of
Game 5 looks like. The last week has been a busy one for Judgements,
and we have had our usual quota of Proposals, both mundane and
extraordinary. What's the latest in the Cozens-Aickin feud? Read on
to find out.
Before we start our ride through the last two weeks, it is worth
taking a look at the `League of Nomic'. This was devised by
Colin Batchelor and has so far been posted twice. The latter one
was calculated on March 4th and is reproduced below.
The results are interesting, considering that the top
two players have shared the Speakership for the best part of
OxNomic's year-and-a-half existence (and remember that
the Speaker is usually only allowed to make one in every twenty-five
Proposals).
P S F +/- W
1 Owen Massey 28 20 7 13 1
2 Ian Collier 19 15 2 13 2
3 Terry Boon 12 12 0 12 0
4 Gordon Aickin 27 18 9 9 0
5 *Mark Rigby-Jones 11 10 1 9 0
6 Ian Snell 23 14 8 6 1
7 Helen Broadie 7 6 1 5 0
8= *Daniel Bor 12 8 4 4 0
8= *Matthew Barratt 12 8 4 4 0
10 *Nick Fortescue 4 3 0 3 1
11= *Juliette White 1 1 0 1 0
11= *Stephen Gower 1 1 0 1 0
13 Colin Batchelor 16 7 7 0 2
14 *Borislav Deianov 2 1 1 0 0
15 Simon Cozens 7 3 4 -1 0
16= *Richard Harrison 1 0 1 -1 0
16= *David Wallace 1 0 1 -1 0
16= *David Woolger 1 0 1 -1 0
19 +Death 1 0 1 -1 0
20 *Stuart Adamson 9 3 5 -2 1
21 *Andrew Dagnall 4 1 3 -2 0
22 *Chris Dickson 22 8 14 -6 0
* indicates someone who has left the game.
+ indicates a Puppet.
Correct up to 1828, 4.iii.98
Gameplay
The first thing to have happened this month was that Death's first
Proposal P85 failed one vote to six, and the second thing (aside from
Ian Snell's Referendum) was the proposal
of Death's second Proposal, P92, to repeal
Rule 201
which is the definition of a Quorum. This failed four votes to six;
perhaps players are beginning to be more confident in voting for the
points.
After the various Judgements discussed in the last newsletter regarding Puppets
and their rights, Helen Broadie submitted FT7 giving a Puppet the right
to do anything a human Player can do, even if its Instructions mean that
it will never avail itself of such rights. This failed with three votes
for and three against; it did not seem to add anything which the Rules
do not already imply.
The outstanding results of Proposals mentioned in the last newsletter
were announced on March 4th. Colin Batchelor's proposal
P86, extending the Rule Clerk's duties to include the history of each
Rule, passed seven votes to three and led to agonising over the
exact interpretations of various changes the details of which had
been lost in the mists of time. The Speaker generously rewarded
the Rule Clerk by donating 50 CV Points. P87 also passed, with seven
votes for and four against, and tidied up the rules relating to Judgement.
Unfortunately it contained two successive amendments to a Rule called
398(2) and so the second amendment had to be ignored as it no longer
referred to an existing rule. This left
Rule 398
rather less tidy than was intended. P88, Colin's third successive
successful Proposal, passed nine votes to two and allowed the Speaker
to table Motions of No Confidence where this is part of his or her
duties. P89, the amendment to
Rule 313
allowing the Speaker to be more lenient about concurrent amendments,
passed seven votes to four.
Colin Batchelor (he again) proposed the introduction of Mines. It
would be possible for a fee of five points to Mine a rule, which
would result in a loss of five points for the first person to
propose an amendment to that rule. However, this Proposal, P93,
failed five votes to six.
The result of the previously proposed P90 to change the
voting period was announced at this point. It only attracted
three votes in favour, with seven against. P91, which reduced
the penalty for Puppets failing to vote, passed with eight votes
for and three against.
Stephen Gower, an ex-player of the game who had been lurking in the
newsgroup for some time, rejoined the game on March 7th,
claiming that the stylish play of Death had enticed him into the game.
Not wanting to start an argument, the Banker complied with the rules
and granted Death a bonus of 20 CV Points.
Stephen's ill-fated first Proposal was P94, a complicated rule involving
a secret number called theta. The intriguing idea was that there was
an alternative way of winning the game by having a score exactly equal
to theta, and since theta is unknown this adds a surprise factor to
the game. To add to the unpredictability, Stephen proposed that
players should be able to alter theta by applying a mathematical
formula to it. Unfortunately it became apparent that there was no
way to ensure that theta remained unknown, making it trivial to
win the game, and despite two amendments attempting to fix the
problems P94 eventually had to be withdrawn.
Ian Snell had a devious plan to demonstrate a flaw in the rules and
fix it at the same time. P95 was the result. It contains
no fewer than seven successive amendments to
Rule 313
but if passed will outlaw Proposals which contain more than one
amendment to any single rule. It also means that the Version Number
mentioned in an amendment is ignored in case the Proposer got it
wrong.
P96 was Death's third attempt to sabotage the rules. This time the
target is Rule 450,
which defines the Reference Number of a Proposal. With this Proposal the Speaker also
distributed Proposals FT8 and P97 which are discussed further in the
Judgements section.
P98 was a Proposal from Colin Batchelor to formalise the awarding of
Black Marks. A Black Mark may be awarded to any Player who breaks the
Rules of OxNomic. P98 also proposes a procedure known as an
Accusation for determining whether or not a player has broken one
or more Rules. The possession of four Black Marks by an Officer
will cause a Motion of No Confidence to be tabled against that Officer.
Colin also proposed P99 to implement a numbering scheme for Judgements
and make sure that Appeals on Judgements are explicitly mentioned in
the Recorder's duties.
Flushed with his success on P94, Stephen Gower proposed an anti-grammar
rule. P100 suggests that the meanings of the words `its' and `it's'
be exchanged within OxNomic. It remains to be seen how this will fare,
and the Speaker will be in Suspended Animation when the voting
period for this Proposal ends so news on this and the previous
few Proposals may not be forthcoming until after Easter.
Referendux
Ian Snell called the Referendum R6:
Given that 11 of the 15 players of .Nomic have overtly Cantabrigian email
addresses, as recorded on the webpage
<http://www.interalpha.net/customer/jefferis/nomic/players.htm> at 04:45
(GMT) on 2nd March, 1998, I call for a Referendum to decide whether this
constitutes a game of nomic starting in Cambridge, as mentioned under rule
320(0).
Although this nomic did not start overtly in Cambridge, but merely on the
newsgroup alt.games.nomic, I consider "starting" in this case to mean
that point when the majority of Players were Cantabrigians, which is a
point in the recent past, the exact timing of which I am uncertain due to
propagation problems of alt.games.nomic.
A vote in favour of this Referendum shall be construed to be in agreement
with the proposition that .Nomic has become a Cantabrigian game under the
limits of 320(0). As the single OxNomic player in .Nomic, if this
Referendum passes I (Ian Snell) shall be appointed temporary Diplomat to
..Nomic to explain the situation to them if that is found to be the means
and ways, or to co-ordinate any warfare.
This Referendum failed, having received only four votes with two of
them being against.
Judgements
The first of the two weeks since the last newsletter passed without
incident, but on March 7th Ian Snell submitted the
first of ten calls for Judgement which have since taken place.
He noticed that Rule
315, which describes the giving away of points after the success
or failure of a `proposed rule', was rather vague and has possibly
been mis-applied to all Proposals - even repeals of rules.
This Judgement has now been numbered
J(22)
by the Recorder.
I call for Judgement on the following two statements:
* 315(0) applies only to enactments of new rules.
* 315(0) applies to all Proposals.
Reasoning:
The condition for 315(0)'s application is the adoption or rejection of
"a proposed rule". This could be interpreted as either of the above
very easily, or even various other ways. Personally, I consider it to
apply only to enactments, as only these fulfill the exact statement, but
in the current situation of the game, it could be more broadly
interpreted. Either way, I suggest a Fast-Track Proposal from the Judge
to clarify matters, and preferably to bring 315 in line with current
game custom, which is to interpret it broadly. I also suggest that no
score changes be made if the Judgement deems that any such score changes
should not have been made.
The Recorder, failing to remember that Puppets are no longer allowed to
be selected as Judges, selected Robin Hood. This was quickly rectified,
however, with the selection of Simon Cozens, who wrote:
I agree with Ian that 315(0) applies only to enactments of new rules.
However, any proposals that are accepted into the ruleset (that is, that
win a vote) are enactments of new rules - EVEN IF they instantly
explicitly repeal themselves, they must have been a rule at some point
(otherwise they could not be repealed) and therefore 'a proposed rule is
accepted.' I would also include amendments that work upon the ruleset in
this category, even though it could be argued that they are not strictly
thus.
Ian Collier commented:
So what was the actual answer of the CfJ?
The above sounds like odd logic. A proposal which is a repeal never exists
as a rule at any time, so by the above 315 should not apply to it. Are we
then to discover and reverse all of the score changes which resulted from
315 being "incorrectly" applied to appeals?
The speaker concluded:
The result of J(16) means that the rules have been violated by requiring
players to award or deduct 5 points after Proposals which are repeals.
I believe it to be true and pretend it never happened.
Simon submitted a Fast-Track Proposal to attempt to clarify the situation,
but more controversy was to come. Observe the sting in the tail...
FT8 Amend 315(0) replacing 'proposed rule' with 'proposal' and 'the person
who proposed the rule' with 'proponent'. Remove twenty points from Gordon
Aickin's score.
Due to its controversial nature, this proposal failed with the only four
votes being negative ones. However, it was the subject of two calls for
Judgement, to which we will return shortly.
Meanwhile, Colin Batchelor submitted J(23)
to clarify the time period allowed for Judges.
* The "four days" in 328(2) means 96 hours from the publicizing of the
identity of the Judge.
* The "four days" in 328(2) means till midnight on the fourth calendar
day after the day before the publicizing of the identity of the Judge.
Justification
When I became Recorder, (wee) Helen got a bit confused about whom to
send her Judgement to, and she sent it to the Speaker within 96 hours,
and I only got hold of it by midnight, which I thought was fair enough.
207(1) usefully paradigmatic but not binding here.
The Judge, Stephen Gower, considered a couple of lateral interpretations:
* The "four days" in 328(2) means Christmas Day, the Recorder's
Birthday, the last Sunday in Advent and the Summer Solstice.
* The "four days" in 328(2) means 100 hours (4 Mars days) from the
publicizing of the identity of the Judge.
before settling on a reasonable compromise:
* The "four days" in 328(2) means till the fourth dusk to fall on
Oxford after the publicizing of the identity of the judge.
For some reason, after the enshrinement of Black
Marks in the same rule which introduced the office of Recorder,
Colin Batchelor called for Judgement to ascertain their status.
* Black marks exist, and the two awarded to himself by Colin Batchelor
for falsely accusing Gordon Aickin of malpractice with CV points and
accidentally selecting Robin Hood as a judge stand.
* Black marks do not exist, and the two awarded to himself by Colin
Batchelor for falsely accusing Gordon Aickin of malpractice with CV
points and accidentally selecting Robin Hood as a judge do not stand.
* Black marks do not exist, but if and when they come into existence,
two awarded to himself by Colin Batchelor for falsely accusing Gordon
Aickin of malpractice with CV points and accidentally selecting Robin
Hood as a judge will stand.
* Black marks exist, and the two awarded to himself by Colin Batchelor
for falsely accusing Gordon Aickin of malpractice with CV points and
accidentally selecting Robin Hood as a judge do not stand.
The first of the two incidents referred to occurred towards the beginning
of the current game when Colin impuned the integrity of Gordon Aickin,
the previous Banker, for allegedly awarding himself an extra CV Point.
When it was pointed out that this was the legal reward for being the
Leader of the Game, Colin apologised and awarded himself a Black Mark.
The second Black Mark had not been announced but had apparently been
awarded for the incident described above with regard to J(22).
The Judge selected was Ian Collier, who replied in due course:
Looking through the Ruleset, I find that the only mention of Black Marks
is in Rule 469(1), in which it states that
The Recorder ... shall record Black Marks against players' names.
This seems to settle the first part of the question, namely that Black Marks
exist. [Although "Black marks" may or may not exist, it seems sensible to
apply a case-insensitive match in this, er, case.]
Interpreting the rule literally and pedantically, I find that the Recorder
has so far not obeyed the law because he has not recorded any Black Marks
against anyone's name. The rule seems to dictate that the Recorder should
record at least two players' names, each with at least one Black Mark
against it (or, indeed, at least two Black Marks positioned in such a
way that they could be said to be against at least two of the names).
Whether the Recorder records anyone else's name and/or records Black
Marks against them is entirely up to him until the Rules are amended to
specify otherwise.
It seems convenient, though not necessarily necessary, that one of the
names recorded should be that of Colin Batchelor, given that he is the
only player to have been awarded a Black Mark (whether legal or not).
Therefore the result of the judgement will be:
> * Black marks exist, and the two awarded to himself by Colin Batchelor
> for falsely accusing Gordon Aickin of malpractice with CV points and
> accidentally selecting Robin Hood as a judge stand.
It is not within the scope of this Judgement to specify whether the
Recorder should comply with the Rules by recording anyone else's name.
So far the Recorder has not announced his intention to record the second
player's name, but Proposals have been submitted which make the process
of awarding Black Marks clearer.
And so we come to one of the oddest incidents so far recorded in the
Judgements section of the OxNomicker. There is no Rule
which regulates the content of a Judgement; in particular, nothing
stops Judgements from being called on similar or identical topics by
several people. Colin Batchelor went one better by submitting three
identical calls, numbered J(25),
J(26) and
J(27).
* P97 is a legal rule change by 105(0).
* P97 is an illegal rule change by 105(0).
The original version of P97 submitted, unsurprisingly, by Simon
`Controversial' Cozens, read:
P97 Add twenty points to the score of everyone who votes in favour of
this Proposal. Go to war against .nomic.
Colin did not supply reasoning for his Judgements, but Ian Collier
commented:
Judgement has already been called three times on this, but I will comment
anyway. Traditionally, a Proposal just containing some random text has
been assumed to contain the implicit introduction "Enact the following
new rule:". This is the only valid interpretation which makes the above a
valid Proposal, and so we probably ought to consider it valid under this
assumption. However, the sole result of passing such a Proposal will be to
add a rule to the ruleset which makes about as much sense as 384 and 461 and
will therefore have no effect on play. I suggest that Simon reword this
into a more conventional rule.
(Readers may recall that 384
and 461 are the
famous With and Without Dusty Bin rules.)
As a result of this comment, Simon pre-empted the Judgements by amending
the proposal to the following.
Enact and immediately repeal the following new rule:
* Twenty points are added to those who voted for this rule.
* This nomic declares war on .nomic
Two of the Judges selected have returned Judgement on this final form
of the Proposal (the third, Terry Boon, has not delivered Judgement
at the time of writing, although Judgement is due later today). Tim
Ricketts wrote:
* P97 is a proposal for two legal rule changes by 105(0).
P97 itself is not a rule change but a proposal. It proposes
i. The enactment of a new rule; and
ii. The repeal of a rule.
Each of these would be a legal rule change by 105(0).
and Stephen Gower agreed:
My judgement is to choose and state the following alternative:
*P97 is two rule changes according to 105(0)
For J(28)
we return to the Fast-Track Proposal FT8 mentioned above. Ian Collier
wrote:
* FT8 is a valid Fast-Track proposal.
* FT8 is not a valid Fast-Track proposal.
A Proposal is an ordered finite non-empty list whose elements are all
rule changes or Motions. FT8 (unless it has been posted in a
nonstandard format) is a list of one element, that element being the
combination of a rule change and a score change.
The Judge selected was Terry Boon, who at the time of writing has not yet
delivered a Judgement. However, on the same subject,
J(29)
was submitted by Gordon Aickin.
* FT8 should not have been accepted by the Speaker as a special
proposal, without risk to the proposer, under 402.
* FT8 should not have been accepted by the Speaker as a fast track
proposal by the Speaker.
* FT8 was correctly accepted as a fast track proposal by the Speaker.
Clearly FT8 is trying to do more than just "clarifying ths
situation." It has a clause, wich has nothing to do which Simon judged.
402 says that the Speaker may reject such proposals, I suggest that he
should have done.
Further I believe that this proposal should not be legal under 402 at
all, and that this kind of combined proposal should not be allowed to be
made without risk. My reasoning for this is under rule 401 "A Judgement
may also be called for in the case where a player feels a rule is in
contrast to the intention of the proposer."
Since I originally proposed 402 I feel that I should know that I
intended these proposals, without risk, to fix the problem the Judgement
was about and nothing else, if this is not what it says, then it is in
contrast to my intentions, and should be changed.
Ian Collier was again the Judge, and replied:
* If FT8 is a Proposal then the Speaker was entitled to accept it as
a Fast-Track Proposal.
I phrase it in this odd way because to do otherwise would be to
pre-judge J28. Of course, if FT8 is not a Proposal then trivially it
is not a Fast-Track Proposal and should not have been accepted by the
Speaker.
Rule 401(5) tells us that:
A Judgement may also be called for in the case where a player feels
a rule is in contrast to the intention of the proposer. If the Judge
feels the rule should be corrected, a Fast-Track proposal should be
used, if they exist.
This is clearly what happened in this case. There does not seem to be
a restriction on the Fast-Track proposal which is made under this rule,
though it could be argued that the Fast-Track proposal should be one
which corrects the rule as dictated by what the player feels was the
intention of the proposer. FT8 does this (as well as also carrying out
an unrelated change).
Rule 402 does not come into play here. Even if it did, the reasoning
would be much the same - and although "the Speaker may refuse to accept
[the proposal] as Fast-Track if it involves more than just clarifying
the situation", the Speaker is not forbidden from accepting it in such
a case.
Owen Massey is the player who was responsible for
J(30),
which read as follows.
* The statement chosen in a Judgement is binding on past play.
* The statement chosen in a Judgement is binding on future play,
unless and until some rule determines the situation.
* The statement chosen in a Judgement is never binding on play.
The Recorder's random judge picker selected Colin Batchelor, the Recorder
himself, so it wasn't very long before Judgement was delivered. The Judge
took the unprecedented action of returning not one but two judgements,
which he numbered J(30a) and J(30b).
Hello, hello. I see that according to 401(5), a Judgement will choose
"one of the options set out in the Call for Judgement". Hence I present
you with two Judgements from the one CFJ:
Judgement J(30a)
: * The statement chosen in a Judgement is binding on past play.
Judgement J(30b)
: * The statement chosen in a Judgement is binding on future play,
: unless and until some rule determines the situation.
Justification:
Having found the rules silent on this issue, I have had to resort to past
Judgements, and J(-19) tells me that "Cozens' Judgement is legal and
binding.", and I'll say that this is relevant to all Judgements. Yes.
The Appeal A(-19) didn't disagree.
This Judgement seemed decidedly fishy to Ian Collier, who responded
with J(31).
* It is legal for a Judge to produce two Judgements.
* It is illegal for a Judge to produce two Judgements.
The Judge of J(30) took the odd step of presenting two Judgements,
J(30a) and J(30b). I claim that this is in conflict with the rules for
answering a Call for Judgement. Specifically, Rule 401(5) states
(emphasis mine):
A legal judgement will chose ONE of the options set out in the Call
for Judgement or may choose and state another alternative.
If the Judge felt that no one of the options represented a correct
answer then he should have chosen an alternative (possibly encompassing
two or more of the given options) and supplied that as the unique
answer.
At the time of writing this newsletter, the selected Judge - Simon Cozens - has
not produced a Judgement which is acceptable to the Recorder, although he has
produced one which was not acceptable.
