Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #167
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest         Friday, June 27 1997         Volume 02 : Number 167

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Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 14:31:14 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Blue Things

> If your reasoning depends on the retroactivity of judgment, please note
> that judgment is not currently retroactive.  R212 (at least it was at
> one time) claims retroactivity for judgment, but without the necessary
> precedence claims to beat 103 (which bans retroactivity).
	R212 doesn't *need* retroactivity to have what would appear to
be a retroactive effect.  A judgement that falls counter to the game
state we've been tracking doesn't go back and change the past; instead
it corrects our mistaken view of the past.   It gives us information
about the past we didn't have before.
	Does that make sense?

- -- 
Mohammed
A extravagant amorphous funny weird squid from Mexico saved a single ant
with its head in the clouds from boredom.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 15:11:47 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Game State Updates

> The scores and entities are updated for the current game state, assuming
> YccmA's post-mortem votes don't count and that alfvaen's military laser 1-10
> counted as military lasers.
	I believe YccmA's votes count.  In fact, R254 may be broken
because it fails to take precedence over R104.  (That may be a bit of
a stretch.)  I will submit a second CFJ to cover this.  (I have
submitted one about YccmA's votes already.)

- -- 
Mohammed
A ant from West Virginia plead not guilty.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Jun 1997 16:42:54 CST/CDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Acka: Auction (OC Paratroop) 

AC>
AC>> I am auctioning 1 Otzma Card Type Paratroop.
AC>> This is a private auction.
AC>>
AC>> Send bids to [email-masked]
AC>>
AC>> Auction lasts three days.

AC>And the minimum bid is...?

AC>--
This is partially an attempt by me to see what the market will support.
               ead--Kate Bush:The Man With The Child In His Eyes
                -Jean Lorrah:Ambrov Keon
                ship, the silver space ship, the lion waves goodbye.

No minimum bid.

Guy Fawkes

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 17:57:45 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Blue Things

> If your reasoning depends on the retroactivity of judgment, please note
> that judgment is not currently retroactive.  R212 (at least it was at
> one time) claims retroactivity for judgment, but without the necessary
> precedence claims to beat 103 (which bans retroactivity).

My reasoning is based on the rendering of the term "judgement".  I
believe passing "judgement" via CFJ, means the *final* verdict.  This
exact case happened in CFJ 190 in regards to an alleged rule-breaking
gadget CFJ that was originally judged TRUE, then overturned to FALSE.
This is my opinion only, and players are encouraged to CFJ the matter of
the blue thing, because I see the argument that the first verdict of 
TRUE nuked it, I just don't agree with it.

My doubt on this matter stemmed from me incorrectly remembering that
the blueprint said "*ever* [my emphasis] judged true", which can be
a different kettle of fish altogether.

I agree with Mohammed on the retroactivity thing.  I think of CFJs as
collapsing threads, not having retoractive effects.  The wording of
rule 212 should probably be changed.

Malenkai

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 17:58:30 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CSRR

> I would like to volunteer for the (currently vacant) position of CSRR
> Officer.

This doesn't happen until the prez formally announces the opening
for the office.

Malenkai

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 15:44:01 -0700
From: Alexandre Muniz <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Mentor pool

I wish to be added to the mentor pool. While I am pretty far from
mastering this game, I think I am familiar with any points that a new
player would need to learn, and besides, it's easy cash. 

**two-star

CNN correspondant John Holliman, on the Mir collision:
The bad thing is -- everybody's safe, everybody is able to breath, but
nobody can get on the treadmill anymore -- for a couple of reasons: One,
the treadmill is in the thing with no air. Two, they have to slow down
what they do. They couldn't have a high-energy newscast like this.
They'd have to -- if they talk, they've got to go very slowly, you know,
just kind of move in slow motion to conserve oxygen, because it takes
electricity to make the electricity machine work.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 18:53:03 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: BWG

"Not it!"

Malenkai
Wizard

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 19:10:07 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 419 (Niccolo Flychuck)

Niccolo Flychuck has been selected.  I was wondering if someone
was going to do this.  At least the CFJs are getting more interesting
and less nit-picky :)

Clerk of the Courts
- ------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 419
  Subject: That's my Machine!  I've got Patent Pending on that!
Initiator: Mohammed
    Judge: Niccolo Flychuck (selected Jun 26, 1997, 19:09h EDT)
Judgement:

Statement:

Malenkai is guilty of Patent Infringement for possessing "military
lasers" when P2104 was accepted (or shortly thereafter.)

Mohammed's Reasoning:

Rule 716 (Patent Infringement) says:

> When a rule change occurs that causes a new named entity or named
> class of entities to exist, and a Player owns an entity with the
> same name as the new entity or class, that Player shall be Guilty of
> Patent Infringement, unless that entity is any type of Frog.

The main question is whether the rule in question is sufficient to
"cause a new ... class of entities to exist."  Certainly it didn't
cause any actual *examples* of Military lasers to appear.  But I argue
that a "class" of entities is not a concrete thing but an idea-- and
P2104 inserted the *idea* of Military lasers in the ruleset for the
first time.  It said:

> If a player assumes a title which requires a score higher than their
> own, in addition to any penalties required by other rules, that
> player is deemed to have been ambushed by Thargoids in hyperspace
> and blasted into a million pieces, leading to the replacement of any
> Military lasers in the player's possession by Pulse lasers, and the
> loss of 1 point.

Interestingly enough, that would cause Malenkai not to have a Pulse
Laser:

> When a Player becomes Guilty of Patent Infringement they shall:
> 1) deliver the item described in the preceding paragraph to the
>    Gaoler, to be placed in the Gaol's Evidence Room.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 19:13:36 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 420 (Malenkai)

Malenkai has been selected.

Clerk of the Courts
- ------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 420
  Subject: Non-voting Player Votes
Initiator: Mohammed
    Judge: Malenkai (selected Jun 26, 1997, 19:13h EDT)
Judgement:

Statement:

Votes that were legally cast on a proposal are counted (in determining
whether the proposal is accepted) regardless of whether some those
votes were cast by voting players who subsequently became non-voting
players under Rule 254.

Mohammed's Reasoning:

I can see this going either way, but I tend to see it as TRUE.

Rule 104:
> As soon as possible after a proposal's prescribed voting period
> ends, the votes on that proposal shall be posted publicly. The
> proposal is then accepted if a quorum has been achieved and the
> required number of YES votes were cast on the proposal.

Rule 106 defines "required number", but makes no mention of voided
votes.

Rule 254:
> Any voting player may become a non-voting player by posting publicly
> that they are doing so; at the moment of this announcement, all
> their existing votes on proposals whose results have not yet been
> released are cancelled;  [etc.]

Now, you could say that Rule 104 does not really specify that *all*
votes are counted, and that it leaves enough room for other rules to
cancel votes without problems.  That way, the statement above is
FALSE.

Or, you could say that the idea of "cancelling" a vote does not
conflict with Rule 104, but it doesn't have any effect either-- since
Rule 104 says "if the required number of YES votes were *cast*"
(emphasis mine), not "...cast and not later cancelled".  In this case,
the statement above is TRUE.

Or, you could say that Rule 254's attempt to "cancel" votes *does*
conflict with Rule 104, and therefore it fails (since R254 doesn't
claim precedence).  This also means the statement is TRUE.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 19:16:13 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 412 Verdict

CFJ 412 has been judged FALSE.

Clerk of the Courts
Wearing many hats
- ------------------------------------------------------------------

Call For Judgment 412
  Subject: The Godfather Scam saga continues
Initiator: Alfvaen
    Judge: Techno (declined)
2nd Judge: ThinMan (declined)
3rd Judge: /dev/joe (selected Jun 23, 1997, 12:25h EDT)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:

The Godfather did not properly ack Malenkai's wager on June 7.

Alfvaen's Reasoning:

The Godfather said that the odds of a public message being posted by a
player other than Malenkai in the next 7 days was 530 to 1, and that
Malenkai was taking the A$1 side of that bet, thereby betting that a player
other than Malenkai _would_ post a message in the next 7 days.  The
message referenced in the Statement above quoted the header of a Proposal
written by Malenkai himself, _but distributed by Acrobot_, and claimed that
the message satisfied the conditions of the wager.

If, by CFJ 247, the Promoter is not responsible for the content of any
Proposal e distributes, it follows therefrom that, especially in a case
such as this(admittedly not mentioned anywhere in the Rules)where the
Promoter's Proposal-distribution duties are handled automatically, the
Promoter is in fact not truly the poster of any Proposals that e is not
the author of emself.

If this is the case, then the message acked by the Godfather as satisfying
the conditions of the wager was not posted by a player other than Malenkai,
Thus the ack made by the Godfather was invalid, and Malenkai did not
receive the money from his wager at that time.  The conditions of the wager
were amply satisfied in the next several days, but the Godfather was remiss
in acking the wager once its conditions were actually satisfied, so it may
be the case that Malenkai never got the money that was justly owed him by
the Narfalone Family before its untimely demise.  (Depending on when this
Judgement goes through, of course, retroactivity will have rendered the
point moot, so that we will be irrevocably in the thread where the
Godfather's goof went unnoticed until it was too late.)

[And since a CFCJ has already been called against Malenkai on this
matter, even though said CFCJ would not be voided by a TRUE judgement
on this CFJ, I would go so far as to encourage the judge to dally and
thus let retroactivity take its course, if e judge it TRUE.]

Malenkai's Bronze Torch Reasoning:

This CFJ should be judged FALSE, IMO, and I ask the Judge to consider
the following comments.  *Either* of two following arguments
is sufficient to arrive at a FALSE verdict.

First, the initiator tries to apply the principle of CFJ 247 to this
case, but that comparison is inappropriate.  CFJ 247 pertains to the
message (noun), and its content, meaning that a player sending a
message to an officer for distribution is considered the author of
the message, despite the fact that an officer other than the player
distributed it.

The wager announced by the Godfather refers to another player *posting*
(verb) a message.  Mohammed *posted* the message in question, regardless
of the fact that CFJ 247 will rule that it is a *message* by Malenkai,
it is a *post* to the list by Mohammed.  This is an important
distinction. (The fact that it is the bot is not relavent on either
side of the argument).

- --

The second argument comes from the old rule 1060 itself:

> When the issue is resolved, the treasury shall transfer the money to the > winner of the bet. Money in the account of the Narfalone Family
> belongs solely to the Narfalone Family and may not be transfered to any
> player by any means other than a wager.

> The Godfather is the only player permitted to speak or act on behalf
> of the Narfalone Family.  Players that object to his decisions are
> welcome to stop by the Narfalone Cement Factory and try on a pair
> of shoes.

The funny thing about this rule, and this has been known by some
players for awhile, is that the rule never *says* that the Godfather
has to *correctly* adjudicate the bet!  Indeed, the first section
quoted simply refers to the mechanics of the money being transferred on
the "resolution" of the bet, whilst the second section refers to the
arbirtaryness of the Godfather's decisions, with the statement to the
effect that there is little recourse if someone objects to one of them.
The language of these sections clearly leaves open the ability for the
Godfather to adjudicate the bet anyway he pleases.

/dev/joe's Reasoning:

The judge's reasoning in CFJ 247, which has developed into game custom,
quite clearly makes the author of a message responsible for its content,
while somebody else might actually *post* the message, in cases such as
proposals.

I also note that the Godfather is not required to adjudicate the bet;
however, I find it has no relevance on the verdict.  "The Godfather
did not properly ack Malenkai's wager on June 7" can still reasonably
be interpreted to mean that the ack in question was somehow incorrect,
or more simply "Malenkai had not won the bet by that time."  But I find
this statement to be false.

Finally, I note that there were plenty of other public messages posted by
players other than Malenkai not long afterward, so even if he hadn't
won the bet by that moment, he won it soon afterward.  Here is where
the "godfather doesn't adjudicate the bet" argument comes into play.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 02:48:39 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka  :  Odo -> MetaMorph

As Founder of the Church of Odo on the Wormhole I am anouncing that the
Church of Odo is transferring A$200 to the Organization MetaMorph.

Niccolo Flychuck
Church Founder

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 02:49:51 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka : MetaMorph

On behalf of MetaMorph I am purchasing a Big Tent, provided tha other
members approve.

Niccolo Flychuck
member of MetaMorph

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 03:02:20 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: acka: Church of Odo - Synod

I am purchasing a Seat in the Synod. I believe Al left the game less than
14 days ago which would make the fee  A$80   (if Al left before that the
fee would be  A$75)

I appointing myself Delegate

Niccolo Flychuck
Founder

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 20:07:05 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: How interesting!

> "Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz 1sagfd156"

T161 Map: Post 'Jukkasjarvi Cheez-Whiz 1sagfd156' as a quoted string to
the public forum.

Guy Fawkes has found treasure 161.

#transfer buried, Guy Fawkes : 4 bv

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 18:05:45 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Mentor pool

> I wish to be added to the mentor pool. While I am pretty far from
> mastering this game, I think I am familiar with any points that a new
> player would need to learn, and besides, it's easy cash. 

Yeah, me too.  I mean, we can't all be Malenkai, but new players may not be
able to tell the different right away.  :-)  And I've been here _almost_
two months...

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--The Stranglers:Aural Sculpture
Current Book--Jean Lorrah:Ambrov Keon
I shot the Sysop, but I should've shot the Moderator...

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 18:10:37 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CSRR

> > I would like to volunteer for the (currently vacant) position of CSRR
> > Officer.
> 
> This doesn't happen until the prez formally announces the opening
> for the office.

I just wondered if I'd missed it.  :-/

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Album--The Stranglers:Aural Sculpture
Current Book--Jean Lorrah:Ambrov Keon
I drink blood because it's the only life I have.  [Wayne Santos]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 17:15:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Mentor pool

>> I wish to be added to the mentor pool. While I am pretty far from
>> mastering this game, I think I am familiar with any points that a new
>> player would need to learn, and besides, it's easy cash. 
> 
> Yeah, me too.  I mean, we can't all be Malenkai, but new players may
> not be able to tell the different right away.  :-) And I've been
> here _almost_ two months...

Actually, it's been my experience that most new players tend to ask
very few questions. Which is too bad, but then again, maybe not.
Perhaps just the knowledge that you have a mentor in case you need one
is enough to give people courage to dive in and absorb it all.

breadbox

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 20:34:36 -0400
From: Malenkai <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Frankenstein Treasure

I intend to bury the Wizard seat and give someone else a go at it,
once all of my blueprints become non-lonely.  I have the following idea
for a Treasure map that may or may not work, but I'm gonna try it.

It will be a Frankenstein Treasure Map.  Players may send lines of
text to me, and they will appended onto the end of the map.  When
the map is a suitable size, I will turn it into an *actual* treasure
map at that time.  I'm not sure how I am going to reveal the map,
but for now I intend to periodically post when someone has met a 
condition, sort of like a Eleusis.  Of course, clever parts senders
can possibly use this fore knowledge to their advantage.  Since the 
entire text of the map will be knowable to the Acka community, I probably
will not reveal anything more than that.  (I know, another RoJ sort of 
thing, but this is different, and simpler).  

Here are the rules.  All parts that are sent to me that do not wither
and die will be attached to the map-under-construction, in the order
received.  I will announce the text of all parts that wither and die.
Parts wither and die when any of the following are true of them:

1) It discriminates, either favorably or unfavorably, against or for
a particular player or class of player.  (ie, 'The player must have
a name that is 'Malenkai'').

2) It would create a self-condradictory, paradoxical, or impossible
map, or the condition is unlikely to ever be achieved.

3) It was submitted by the player who most recenly submitted a part,
unless it has been more than 7 days since the last part was submitted.

4) It is a cryptogram.  The problem with cryptograms is that the submitter
may have some key that is needed, like a PGP sort of thing.  I will have
no way to know that.  Non-encrypted puzzles may be cool, though, like
some of the parts of the RoJ.

5) It does not have the subject line "Acka: FTM" or something reasonably
similar.  (for Frankenstein Treasure Map.  I get so much mail I need
some way to sort it all.)

6) I don't like it or find it out of the spirit.  I'll try not to use
this one.

This could be fun if enough people do it.  If it doesn't work, I'll bag
it.  Even if you do not want to be Wizard, its worth finding the office,
because it can be sold.  Obviously, the mort parts you submit, the more
of an advantage you will have.

Malenkai
hacking (on IRC)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 20:37:26 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Broken Record

I am offering a Pulse Laser to the first person who validly volunteers
to referee the Viruses game currently in limbo.  If CFJ 415 is judged FALSE
on appeal, I won't have any at all, so this may be a strictly time-limited
offer.  (And if I don't end up having any Pulse Lasers, I'll still have the
lovely and unique Military laser 1-10...:-)

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Song--Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell:Duelling Banjos
Current Book--Jean Lorrah:Ambrov Keon
"Oh God, Lloyd, you're so deep."

------------------------------

End of Ackanomic Digest V2 #167
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