Subject: ackanomic digest V3 #180
From: [email-masked] (ackanomic digest)
To: [email-masked]

ackanomic digest         Tuesday, June 2 1998         Volume 03 : Number 180

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 01:42:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: If crises come in threes, then we're due for one more.

Hi everyone. Terribly sorry, but email just died for about an hour
there. Nothing sinister this time - people were just working on the
process of putting the machine back together and someone made an
misstep while logged in as root. It took us a little while to undo
the damage, and unfortunately during that time the email messages were
getting dropped into the bit bucket.

The last email I sent out which was successfully delivered had the
subject line of "Acka: First Attempt", at 23:45 EDT. (If anyone didn't
receive this, then let me know.) The accident happened less than five
minutes after that.

If you sent anything out after then and didn't get it back, it's gone
and you will need to resend it.

We apologize most humbly for the inconvenience.

breadbox

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 01:49:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Acka: Re: 867-5309

> Which reminds me.  In the grand tradition of Mr. Tambourine Man, I change
> my Ackanomic name (pending, of course, the Registrar's acknowledgement) to
> "867-5309".

Almost forgot.  I ack this.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Song In My Head--Tim Finn:No Thunder--No Fire--No Rain
Current Book--Mary Stewart:The Moon-Spinners
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 01:51:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: First attempt

> I can see, offhand, only one point in my reasoning in which people
> might disagree ...

Actually, there is an earlier point that I forgot about, and that is
whether or not K 2's prior attempts to use the Quirpele of
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis actually failed.

It seems pretty clear to me that they did fail, because he was
attempting a public action that was not permitted - namely, changing
the text of a single rule. The fact that he *was* permitted to attempt
a much more powerful public action doesn't change anything - that was
not the action he attempted.

breadbox

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 01:56:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CRD 102

> This sentence and the following three sentences form the complete text of
> State of Crisis Resolution Document 102, should the game currently be in a
> State of Crisis.

Well, Alfvaen at one point declared a State of Crisis in all threads
that were not in a State of Crisis, so I think it's pretty safe to
assume that we are in fact in a State of Crisis.

> All instances of the text "by K 2" in the rules are changed to "in the
> rules".
> All instances of the text "in the rules" which currently exist, but did
> not exist before the 29th of May 1998 are changed to "Spelling Bee".
> Rule 999 is repealed.

Let it be known that I intend to publicly challenge this Crisis
Resolution Document. I am *not* challenging it now, because a) I may
be wrong about something, and b) I wish to leave the President the
option of retracting it.

It is my opinion that all three actions described in this Document
will have no effect, and that the calling for a State of Crisis was
premature.

breadbox

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 02:47:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CRD 102

On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Brian Raiter wrote:

> > This sentence and the following three sentences form the complete text of
> > State of Crisis Resolution Document 102, should the game currently be in a
> > State of Crisis.
> 
> Well, Alfvaen at one point declared a State of Crisis in all threads
> that were not in a State of Crisis, so I think it's pretty safe to
> assume that we are in fact in a State of Crisis.
> 
> > All instances of the text "by K 2" in the rules are changed to "in the
> > rules".
> > All instances of the text "in the rules" which currently exist, but did
> > not exist before the 29th of May 1998 are changed to "Spelling Bee".
> > Rule 999 is repealed.
> 
> Let it be known that I intend to publicly challenge this Crisis
> Resolution Document. I am *not* challenging it now, because a) I may
> be wrong about something, and b) I wish to leave the President the
> option of retracting it.

I retract the Crisis Resolution Document numbered 102.
> 
> It is my opinion that all three actions described in this Document
> will have no effect, and that the calling for a State of Crisis was
> premature.

Actually, it was not premature.  However, during the State of Crisis the
real scam was finally perpetrated.

- -- 
Duncan C. "" Richer aka
Slakko (Lost) Warner - http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/ - Queens' College
Cambridge, 1st Year PhD(Pure Maths), CUDipSoc, CUSFS, CUSTS, CURS etc
Acka - President, Web-Harfer, RuneMaker, ChessUmpire, Map-Harfer

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 03:10:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Impending Quorum Crisis

The last couple of proposals have had a large number of abstentions on
them.  I've looked back to see who out of the Abstainers have been
consistently abstaining (i.e. who has the longest consecutive run of
abstentions)

Fortunato last voted on 3144, 3 consecutive abstentions.
Rex Mundi - 3141 - 6
Niccolo Flychuck - 3123 - 18
Joe Java - 3121 - 20
ThinMan - 3109 - 31
IdiotBoy - 3099 - 40
Wild Card - 3088 - 51
Astro - 3075 - 62
Pandora - 3061 - 73
Calvin N Hobbes - 2857 - 247

As things stand, if these people continue abstaining, we only need 3 more
abstentions to have another Quorum Crisis.  I therefore would remind
people who are active to get out there and vote.

Yours,
Slakko
- -- 
Duncan C. "" Richer aka
Slakko (Lost) Warner - http://dcr24.quns.cam.ac.uk/ - Queens' College
Cambridge, 1st Year PhD(Pure Maths), CUDipSoc, CUSFS, CUSTS, CURS etc
Acka - President, Web-Harfer, RuneMaker, ChessUmpire, Map-Harfer

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 03:10:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: First attempt

> An infinitesimal amount of time after *that*, K 2 did the following:
> 
>> Create a rule numbered 1351 titled "Who Will Buy K 2" with the
>> following text delimited by BONK:
> 
> Since (I belive) K 2 is permitted to change the rules as a public
> action, this succeeds.

Minor correction: I failed to notice until now that we already have a
rule numbered 1351, namely "Mooning". So, by Rule 303, this new rule
receives a number greater than all existing rules, specifically 1400.
(Damn! Another new web page, and this time it's my own fault!)

breadbox

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 03:17:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: First attempt

On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Brian Raiter wrote:

>> An infinitesimal amount of time after *that*, K 2 did the following:
>> 
>>> Create a rule numbered 1351 titled "Who Will Buy K 2" with the
>>> following text delimited by BONK:
>> 
>> Since (I belive) K 2 is permitted to change the rules as a public
>> action, this succeeds.
>
>Minor correction: I failed to notice until now that we already have a
>rule numbered 1351, namely "Mooning". So, by Rule 303, this new rule
>receives a number greater than all existing rules, specifically 1400.
>(Damn! Another new web page, and this time it's my own fault!)

I am most mortified that I didn't notice this either when I was judging
the CFJ earlier.

- --JT

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.                  ]
[ It's hard to seize the day when you must first grapple with the morning ]
[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 03:58:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 606 (JT)

On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:

Judgement: FALSE

Reasoning:
First, the only question that needs to be answered is if at the time of
the passage of P3090, alfvaen's score was in excess of 1000 points.

There are two ways that this could possibly be approached, and I believe
that both of them yeild the same result (fortunately)

The first way to possibly approach this is via 'what happens with
scoring'.
>From rule 205, section 4 (Scoring Changes Based on the Content of an
Adopted Proposal), ... it is deemed to have occured simultaneously with
any changes mandated by rule 207 ... So, if it went infinite, it did so in
that moment.
However, also from rule 205, this time from section 5,
If a score change is due to a rule or entity (e.g. Magic Potato), and a
rule change is adopted that affects how that rule or entity causes score
changes (including, but not limited to, destroying the entity), then no
score changes are generated by that rule or entity for the adoption of the
specific rule change in question. This paragraph has precedence over
sections 2), 3) and 4) where there is a conflict. This rule defers
precedence to R 313 where there is a conflict. [This is to handle the
"Potato Paradox" when a Proposal passes to repeal the Magic Potato, or the
10th proposal passes that repeals the Brass Monkey, no scoring is
generated by those entities for the proposal which passed.]

Now according to this, prior to the proposal which (supposedly) created
the infinite score change, Rule 340 granted no score changes.  With the
passing of the proposal, that rule suddenly granted a score change, thus
changing how that rule or entity causes score changes, therefore NO score
changes occured by the adoption of that proposal. (in which case, all
points for voting/anti-voting on that proposal never actually happened)

In this case, obviously the judgement is FALSE as the change to scores
never occured.

[This is similar to the argument that Alfvaen presented that I would not
get the 10 points for the recent Great Work proposal, and I believe it has
merit]

Alternatively, one could look at other cases where a statement in the
rules could have been taken to imply infinite application.  The most
relevant CFJ I found was CFJ 407 referring to Cow Town and that it could
create an infinite number of such Hotels.

In that case, it was argued that the _intent_ of the rule was that it be
applied only once.  One might try to argue that this implies legislative
intent has some power in the rules.  However, looking through other CFJs,
it seems to be the game custom that legislative intent was not what was
meant there, but rather the intent based on the english meaning of the
words.

In fact, according to CFJ 335, if a valid english wording of the rule
makes sense, then intent of the proposal can and (in this case) was
ignored.
To quote from the reasoning.
>The preamble does not require anything of players, and does not restrict
>such birthday wishes, and while it may point to what might have been the
>intent of this rule, I can only judge by the actual wording of the rule,
>which, IMO, does not restrict Boon of the Ancient only to those players
>who made their public wishes during the festivities.

The actual wording of the relevant portion of the rule in question is:
>{{The Gingham Wearer loses two points. Alfvaen gains two points. [He
>reminded me about the need to do this.]}}

Therefore, the meaning is obvious, The Gingham Wearer lost 2 points, and
Alfvaen gained to points.

And regardless of the intent that this be an infinite action, it was not,
and thus once again, this CFJ is judged FALSE.

There might in fact be other ways of approaching this CFJ, such as the one
Vynd mentioned in the original CFJ, however, I feel the two I present
above are sufficient to judge this FALSE.

- --JT

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 04:06:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: JT <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: CFJ 606 (JT)

On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, JT wrote:

>On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Tom Walmsley wrote:

Feh.. I'm half asleep.  This was meant to go to CotC, not Ackanomic as a
whole, fortunately, it was legal for me to do this.
The above attribution line however was incorrect and should be ignored, it
was from the mail I was replying to, namely the distribution of the CFJ.

- --JT

[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[ Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.                  ]
[ It's hard to seize the day when you must first grapple with the morning ]
[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 04:32:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CSR 142

The following is the text of CSR 142, and will take effect in three
days if there are less than two objections.

Renumber Rule 1400 ("Who Will Buy K 2") to 1352.

Renumber all rules with a base number of 1399 so as to have a base
number of 1390 (any sub numbers remain unaltered).

{{[This will leave a small buffer so that any more weird rule
creations will still fit into the 1300s.]}}

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 05:06:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: acka : Church of Odo invites Wild Card

As Founder, I accept Wild Card into as a member of the Church of Odo on
the Worm Hole, if he is not already a member.

Niccolo Flychuck
Founder of the Church of Odo on the Worm Hole

On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Jonathan David Amery wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Niccolo Flychuck wrote:
> 
> > 
> > A few weeks ago Wild Card petitioned to join the Church of Odo, whle it
> > was still a Cult. There was some small mix up within the Church about
> > timing, and I think that action failed.
> > On behalf of the Church of Odo on the Worm Hole I invite Wild Card to
> > become a member of the Church.
> > 
> I request to become a member of the Church if I am not already...
> 
> Wild Card.
> 
> ------------------------------
> 

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 06:31:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: nomicbot is down

I'm making some modifications to the bot, and rather than risk losing
any more votes, I'm just taking the whole thing offline for a bit.
I'll let you all know when it's back up again....

breadbox

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 06:36:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (L'homme a tete de choux)
Subject: Acka: The Spelling Quirpele

K2:
>In the tread were I made a mess of the rules the first time round:
>Pandora owns the Quirpele.

I deny this. This is not true. Rule 342 says that the Quirpele of
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is an unownable entity.
Therefore, I can't possibly own it. Even if I ever did. Which I didn't.

Rule 999 probably comes into it somewhere, but that has been repealed, hasn't
it?

I've completely lost track of what the hell is going on. Would some kind soul
care to explain?

Alfvaen:
>You mean Ayla has the Quirpele, of course...

....except that neither can Ayla own an unownable entity, surely?

Pandora

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 07:29:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: That was quick

Okay, it is once again safe to send email to nomicbot.

I have altered the mechanics of the web voting form so that it now
relays the email directly to the nomicbot reception program, instead
of going through email. The advantage of this is that if any errors
occur *anywhere* in the process, they are relayed back to the
still-waiting web script. Thus, if you get the final page, you will
know with certainty that your votes have in fact already been stored
in nomicbot's inbox. Hopefully these changes will allay any fears that
may have been generated from the events of the last few days.

breadbox

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 07:51:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: The Spelling Quirpele

>> In the tread were I made a mess of the rules the first time round:
>> Pandora owns the Quirpele.
> 
> I deny this. This is not true. Rule 342 says that the Quirpele of
> Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is an unownable entity.
> Therefore, I can't possibly own it. Even if I ever did. Which I didn't.

Heh. In the thread where the Quirpele of
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis refers to an entity used
to fix spelling errors, it was never transfered to you or Ayla or
anyone else, since the rule calling for its transference was repealed
before the OiCoRT could determine who it would go to.

The Quirpele of Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis was only
transfered to Ayla in the thread where K 2's earliest attempted
actions succeeded, in which rufus probably knows what the ruleset
looks like better than I do.

breadbox

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 10:19:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Subject: Re: Acka: If crises come in threes, then we're due for one more.

> The last email I sent out which was successfully delivered had the
> subject line of "Acka: First Attempt", at 23:45 EDT. (If anyone didn't
> receive this, then let me know.) The accident happened less than five
> minutes after that.

> If you sent anything out after then and didn't get it back, it's gone
> and you will need to resend it.

Did all the digests go out?  I think I only saw one...

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/ )
Song In My Head--Third Eye Blind:Semi-Charmed Life
Current Book--Mary Stewart:The Moon-Spinners
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 10:41:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jonathan David Amery <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Impending Quorum Crisis

On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Duncan Richer wrote:

> The last couple of proposals have had a large number of abstentions on
> them.  I've looked back to see who out of the Abstainers have been
> consistently abstaining (i.e. who has the longest consecutive run of
> abstentions)
> 
> Fortunato last voted on 3144, 3 consecutive abstentions.
> Rex Mundi - 3141 - 6
> Niccolo Flychuck - 3123 - 18
> Joe Java - 3121 - 20
> ThinMan - 3109 - 31
> IdiotBoy - 3099 - 40
> Wild Card - 3088 - 51
> Astro - 3075 - 62
> Pandora - 3061 - 73
> Calvin N Hobbes - 2857 - 247
> 
> As things stand, if these people continue abstaining, we only need 3 more
> abstentions to have another Quorum Crisis.  I therefore would remind
> people who are active to get out there and vote.
> 
 If breadbox has for some reason not got my votes on the proposals in the
queue I hereby go non-voting until Friday afternoon.

 Wild Card. ((About to hit exams...))

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 14:06:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 605 (INVALID)

Pandora has judged this INVALID without comment.

Clerk of the Courts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgement 605- Jun 01, 1998
Subject: Crash! (Part 2)
Initiator: /dev/joe (sent Jun 01, 1998, 13:20)
Judge: Pandora (selected Jun 01, 1998, 13:35)
Judgement: 

Statement:
Nobody has ever successfully used action a) described in the first
paragraph of Rule 999.

Initiator's Reasoning:
This is thread 1 of my recent message, in which K 2's attempts to change
the quoted phrase in R999 is not considered an attempt to change that
phrase everywhere.  The alternative is that K 2's first two attempts
did succeed, changing "Spelling Bee" and "in the rules" to "by k 2"
everywhere.

Judge's Reasoning:

[None]

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 14:07:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: First attempt

> > Replace all occurrences of "only be changed as described in the
> > rules" in all Rules, and in any Proposals in the voting queue with
> > "only be changed by K 2 as a public action".
> 
> The new Rule 999 permits this, of course (again, except for the bit
> about the proposals). So all the rules quoted above change again, and
> again, only make sense if the phrase is read as an entity's name.
> 
> But, of course, Rule 101 is also changed to say:
> 
> The rules and the game state may only be changed by K 2 as a public
> action.
> 
> By the same argument I gave above, I don't think we can interpret this
> as a nonsensical sentence fragment that mentions an entity by name. We
> have to read this pretty much as it sounds. Congratulations, K 2.
> Unless I've missed something, you succeeded in assuming dictatorial
> power. Proposals, CSRs, even CRDs are now restricted from changing the
> rules.

The big problem here is the word "only" which unless I'm mistaken did not
give Alfvaen the power to amend Beldin's Pants according to a recent Supreme
Court decision. If this is the case then it's quite possible that the game
has totally crashed. Of course, if we just ignore the fact that it has
crashed for 14 days then it will uncrash itself. I think :-).

Mr. Tambourine Man.

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 14:07:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: DOWN BOY!

> Slow down, everyone. One loophole surf at a time! It has been my
> experience that hasty attempts to block a scam usually just make
> matters worse. CRD 101 was a much bigger judicial headache than the
> original loophole it was trying to fix, for example. (Don't be
> surprised if I object to CRD 102. But first I need to figure out what
> is going on ... or at least what I think is going on.)

And I still don't like your verdict on CFJ 484.  I'm telling you, if I wasn't
still a newbie back then I would have wrote some proper appeal reasoning
rather than just appealing it with three lines of reasoning or so as was my
habit back then ( :-) ) and quite possibly tried to get myself a paradox win
out of it. That damn CSR was retroactive!

Why is it that quite a few of the more awkward CFJs have more than one judge
in different threads (CFJs 512 & 513 anyone?)? Don't you just love nomic?
:-).

Mr. Tambourine Man.

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 14:07:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFCJ 165 (FALSE)

Koxvolio has judged this FALSE. I appologise for the delay. It got lost
amongst all the scam CFJs. :-)

Clerk of the Courts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Criminal Judgment 165 (May 30)
Subject: Iconoclasm
Initiator: K 2 (sent May 30, 1998, 04:12)
Judge: Koxvolio (selected May 30, 1998, 09:04)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:
Hubert committed the Crime of Iconoclasm on 17th May.

Initiator's Reasoning:
According to Rule 1005, an organizational action consists of two parts,
namely the suggestion, followed by the approval of each of the
organization's members. Section 4.e of Rule 1301 gives Church Policy the
ability outline an alternate method by which the church's priesthood may
make a decision, however, neither that section nor any other section of
rule 1301 gives church policy the power to initiate that action. As a
result a church action must first be suggested before church policy may
be applied to make a decision regarding that action.

Regarding the Order of the Razor Boomerang's (OotRB) Church Policy, the
following statements have been made by its founder (Hubert):
i) Tue, 14 Apr 1998 18:07:41: Razor Boomerangs may refer to the Founder
as anything other than "Hubert."  This includes pronouns.  The preceding
two sentences are false, and so is this one.

ii) Mon, 20 Apr 1998 20:05:58: Since Church Policy requires that all
members approve of any organizational action suggested by the Founder,
and since R1005 does not require public approval of actions, this
happens instantaneously.

iii) Tue, 21 Apr 1998 19:16:39: I suggest that the Order of the Razor
Boomerang build a Secret Lab, and it occurs because I'm the Founder and
two of my minio... uh, Priests have approved it already.  Church Policy
is whatever it needs to be in order for this to happen.

iv) Mon, 04 May 1998 18:25:37: I suggest that the Order of the Razor
Boomerang use its Secret Lab to create a Spell Book of Chorg.  Since I
am the Founder, this happens.

v) Sun, 24 May 1998 01:34:05: Did I forget to mention that the Order of
the Razor Boomerang automatically approves of any action the Razor
Boomerangs undertake?  It's in the Church Policy.

Since points ii and iii-iv appear to disagree it would appear that
church policy changed to allow the founder to make autocratic decisions.
In accord with this, an action undertaken by the OotRB on 04 May 1998
18:25:37 only required the suggestion of the founder:
>I suggest that the Order of the Razor Boomerang transfer its
>Spell Book of Chorg to Joe Java. Since I am the Founder, this happens.

According to point v the OotRB automatically approves all RB actions,
however according to rule 1005 an organizational action must first be
suggested since church policy does not have the power to do so itself.
Since Hubert did not suggest that the OotRB take the action of approving
the action of the RB, that was suggested on 17 May 1998 20:15:59, 
within a week of the suggestion of that action, e disobeyed church 
policy which implicitly requires the suggestion of that action. As 
a result Hubert committed the heinous crime of Iconoclasm.

Ideally the miscreant would be hung by eir toe nails and pummelled into
unconsciousness with a razor boomerang, however, since such punishment
is legally impossible:

Suggested Punishment:
Removal from the Order of the Razor Boomerangs and Transference of
Bill's Razor Boomerang, Sluggo's Razor Boomerang and Goldie's Razor
Boomerang to the initiator of this CFJ that e may be return them to
worshipers of the faith.

Judge's Reasoning
With regret, I must judge this False. The Church Policy must be regarded
as unknown by anybody except the Founder, because he may be able to change
it at no notice.

As things currently stand, the Founder is fairly immune - your reasoning
stands up if all your assumptions are true, but assumes too many things
which are not necessarily the case. OotRB may have, in their Church
Policy, a clause saying that the Founder's actions always conform the the
requirements, or that Church Policy adjusts to what he thinks it is. If a
change is made, we do not need to be told, and (perhaps) the followers of
the church themselves are not even told...

I would only accept CFCJs for iconoclasm if the Founder called them, on
the principle that it is likely that the only person with an accurate idea
of Church Policy is the Founder, and if something cannot be proved true,
it must be left in question.

[I'm going to Proposal this to fix it]

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 14:33:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 609 (Koxvolio)

Koxvolio has been selected.

Clerk of the Courts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgement 609 - Jun 02, 1998
Subject: Paradox?
Initiator: Mr. Tambourine Man (sent Jun 02, 1998, 12:29)
Judge: Koxvolio (selected Jun 01, 1998, 12:30)
Judgement: 

Statement:
The action of breadbox maintaining a copy of the rules in which rule 419.1
does not contain the text "currently [email-masked]" and no other
copies appears equally legal and illegal.

Initiator's Reasoning:

This is a paradox win CFJ.

First I will note that this is an action that effects the game state and so
can be a paradox win, because of rule 701.

The text quoted above was in proposal 3129, which was recently accepted.
There are two ways it could be interpreted: either the text in notes brackets
should be added to the rule; or the text in notes brackets is merely a note
in the middle of a block of text. There is plenty of game custom that seems
to indicate that either is possible. Therefore it is impossible to determine
how the rule actually reads.

Rule 407.1 lists one of the duties of the rule-harfer (currently breadbox)
as:

"a) To keep an accurate copy of the Rules of Ackanomic (known as the Official
Rules Document), and to make the text of the Official Rules Document
available to any player upon request."

Since it is not possible to know what the rules actually are, it is
impossible for breadbox to definitely do this by maintaining only one copy of
the rules.

Rule 701 states:

"Failure of an Officer to perform a Duty of an Office e holds is the Crime of
Non-Performance. The act of performing a Duty incorrectly is the Crime of
Malpractice."

Maintaining an incorrect copy of the rules would therefore be malpractice.
Therefore if breadbox maintains just one copy, since there is a fifty percent
chance of his copy being the right one there is also a fifty percent chance
of him committing malpractice. Therefore the action in the statement appears
equally legal and illegal.

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 16:43:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 608 (FALSE)

JT has judged FALSE.

Clerk of the Courts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgement 608 - Jun 01, 1998
Subject: This Dumb
Initiator: K 2 (sent Jun 01, 1998, 15:15)
Judge: JT (selected Jun 01, 1998, 16:40)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:
On 1 Jun 1998 02:11:11 Hubert traded all of eir tradeable entities for
A$1 from Mr. Tambourine Man.

Reasoning:
On Sat, 30 May 1998, Mr. Tambourine Man wrote:

>I also offer to trade A$1 of mine for all the
>tradable entities belonging to anyone else.

On 1 Jun 1998 02:11:11 Hubert wrote:
>I accept Mr. Tambourine Man's A$1 and give em all of Slakko's tradeable

>entities.

This can be interpreted as either: Hubert attempted to trade all of
Slakko's tradeable entities for A$1, an impossible/illegal trade by rule
515, or Hubert accepted MTM's trade and _then_ attempted to give MTM
Slakko's tradeable entities.

Judge's Reasoning:
As was pointed out by K2, there are two possible interpretations of the
action as performed by Hubert.

According to rule 373, Public Actions:
>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.]

The action referenced in this CFJ was ambiguous because it could lend
itself to two completely seperate interpretation depending on the meaning
of the logical connective 'and'.  Both readings are sensible in that they
specify 'meaningful' sentances.

Since there was an ambiguity in the action, the attempted action did in
fact fail according to rule 373.

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 16:45:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 607 (FALSE)

JT has judged this one FALSE too.

Clerk of the Courts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgement 607 - Jun 01, 1998
Subject: Crash! (Part 3)
Initiator: K 2 (sent Jun 01, 1998, 14:49)
Judge: JT (selected Jun 01, 1998, 16:00)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:
A rule titled "Who Will Buy K 2" numbered 1351 exists.

Initiator's Reasoning:
Given that the following:
>I am using my powers as owner of The Quirpele of
>Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis to change the phrase
>"Spelling
>Bee" in rule 999 (The Quirpele of
>Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis)
>to read "in the rules", which as everbody knows is a legal acknomic
>name.
does not constitute a valid use of Rule 999.a then the following section
of rule 999 was not invoked:
Upon performing any of the above actions, the ... [Quirpele]
....teleports to another random player.

So at 01 Jun 1998 13:33:45 K 2 possessed the Quirpele and was able to
use it to replace phrases in the rules. As a result of those changes
rule 101 read in part:
The rules and the game state may only be changed by K 2 as a public
action.

Subsequent public actions by K 2 caused rule 1351 to be created.

Judge's Reasoning:
While there does exist a rule (or so I believe) with the title of
'Who will buy K 2', it is most certainly not rule number 1351.

I considered treating the rule number as a 'unambiguous' misspelling, but
rejected that since the statement as written made sense even if it wasn't
the statement that was intended.

If the statement had asked whether a rule titled 'Who will buy K 2'
existed, I would have judged this TRUE based on the very persuasive
arguments given by breadbox and posted on June 1st.

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 16:45:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alexandre Owen Muniz <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Auction that entity!

If it is the case that K2 is a tradable entity in the treasury, I am
paying 10 A$ to the treasury and requesting the financier to call an
"Auction them Entities" Auction on it.

**two-star

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 16:48:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Tom Walmsley" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 606 (FALSE)

Another judgement of FALSE by JT.

Clerk of the Courts
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Call For Judgement 606 - Jun 01, 1998
Subject: The other possible thing that could have crashed the game
Initiator: Alfvaen (sent Jun 01, 1998, 13:33)
Judge: JT (selected Jun 01, 1998, 13:38)
Judgement: FALSE

Statement:
Alfvaen has achieved a Winning Condition within the past week.

Initiator's Reasoning:
This is a Cycle-Win CFJ.

This relies on my score having become infinite back when that Proposal
(2938?) by (then) The Gingham Wearer passed and added the non-self-deleting
text to the bottom of Rule 340.  If it was the case that only reason my last
CWCFJ was denied was that my score surpassing the Magic Number had happened
more than a week earlier, then I guess my score was infinite until ThinMan's
Proposal 3090.  And if my score was infinite at that point, then not only
was my score set equal to the Magic Number, but I also achieved _another_
Winning Condition at the same time from P3090's own effects.

I still don't think I did, but it's still worth a try.

Judge's Reasoning:
First, the only question that needs to be answered is if at the time of
the passage of P3090, alfvaen's score was in excess of 1000 points.

There are two ways that this could possibly be approached, and I believe
that both of them yeild the same result (fortunately)

The first way to possibly approach this is via 'what happens with
scoring'.
>From rule 205, section 4 (Scoring Changes Based on the Content of an
Adopted Proposal), ... it is deemed to have occured simultaneously with
any changes mandated by rule 207 ... So, if it went infinite, it did so in
that moment.
However, also from rule 205, this time from section 5,
If a score change is due to a rule or entity (e.g. Magic Potato), and a
rule change is adopted that affects how that rule or entity causes score
changes (including, but not limited to, destroying the entity), then no
score changes are generated by that rule or entity for the adoption of the
specific rule change in question. This paragraph has precedence over
sections 2), 3) and 4) where there is a conflict. This rule defers
precedence to R 313 where there is a conflict. [This is to handle the
"Potato Paradox" when a Proposal passes to repeal the Magic Potato, or the
10th proposal passes that repeals the Brass Monkey, no scoring is
generated by those entities for the proposal which passed.]

Now according to this, prior to the proposal which (supposedly) created
the infinite score change, Rule 340 granted no score changes.  With the
passing of the proposal, that rule suddenly granted a score change, thus
changing how that rule or entity causes score changes, therefore NO score
changes occured by the adoption of that proposal. (in which case, all
points for voting/anti-voting on that proposal never actually happened)

In this case, obviously the judgement is FALSE as the change to scores
never occured.

[This is similar to the argument that Alfvaen presented that I would not
get the 10 points for the recent Great Work proposal, and I believe it has
merit]

Alternatively, one could look at other cases where a statement in the
rules could have been taken to imply infinite application.  The most
relevant CFJ I found was CFJ 407 referring to Cow Town and that it could
create an infinite number of such Hotels.

In that case, it was argued that the _intent_ of the rule was that it be
applied only once.  One might try to argue that this implies legislative
intent has some power in the rules.  However, looking through other CFJs,
it seems to be the game custom that legislative intent was not what was
meant there, but rather the intent based on the english meaning of the
words.

In fact, according to CFJ 335, if a valid english wording of the rule
makes sense, then intent of the proposal can and (in this case) was
ignored.
To quote from the reasoning.
>The preamble does not require anything of players, and does not restrict
>such birthday wishes, and while it may point to what might have been the
>intent of this rule, I can only judge by the actual wording of the rule,
>which, IMO, does not restrict Boon of the Ancient only to those players
>who made their public wishes during the festivities.

The actual wording of the relevant portion of the rule in question is:
>{{The Gingham Wearer loses two points. Alfvaen gains two points. [He
>reminded me about the need to do this.]}}

Therefore, the meaning is obvious, The Gingham Wearer lost 2 points, and
Alfvaen gained to points.

And regardless of the intent that this be an infinite action, it was not,
and thus once again, this CFJ is judged FALSE.

There might in fact be other ways of approaching this CFJ, such as the one
Vynd mentioned in the original CFJ, however, I feel the two I present
above are sufficient to judge this FALSE.

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

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 18:51:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: If crises come in threes, then we're due for one more.

>> The last email I sent out which was successfully delivered had the
>> subject line of "Acka: First Attempt", at 23:45 EDT. (If anyone didn't
>> receive this, then let me know.) The accident happened less than five
>> minutes after that.
> 
>> If you sent anything out after then and didn't get it back, it's gone
>> and you will need to resend it.
> 
> Did all the digests go out?  I think I only saw one...

Oh, dear. I thought they had, because I saw the one for the main list
get sent, but that was probably just because my huge email flushed it.

Well, anything that didn't go out yesterday will get attached to
today's digest. Nothing else should get lost. (I will be so happy when
things are back to normal around here.)

breadbox

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

End of ackanomic digest V3 #180
*******************************