Subject: ackanomic Digest V4 #255
From: [email-masked]
To: ackanomic digest users <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 00:00:02 -0400 (EDT)

ackanomic Digest	Tuesday, September 21 1999	Volume: 04  Issue: 255

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From: K 2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: speaker (Malenkai)
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 07:54:11 -0400 (EDT)

John Bollinger wrote:
> 
> Cthulhu wrote:
> >The results of the election for speaker are as follows:
> 
> >Malenkai:
> [8]
> >
> >K 2:
> [3]
> 
> Congratulations, Malenkai, once again Speaker of Ackanomic!
> 
> ThinMan

Not until e returns from vacation

K 2
Acting Speaker but not OiCoRT :-)

oh yeah will i'm here if the acting Count Tabula could initiate
elections for DJ, Scaremonger, OiCoRT and any other offices that are
vacant...

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From: K 2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Double Dissolution
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 08:09:14 -0400 (EDT)

Quite unexpectedly one player nominted emself from Promotor and
Tabulator - /dev/joe is appointed to both offices.

Spelling Exchequer is filled by ThinMan (EA!P! and ThinMan were the only
nominees).

EA!P! is assigned Herald, Treasure-Harfer, Rule-Harfer, Count Tabula,
Dungeon Master. (EA!P! wtON)

Slakko is assigned the position of Map Harfer and Web Harfer. (Slakko
and EA!P! wtONs)

Meanwhile I become Registrar and Clerk of the Court. (EA!P! and I wtONs)

K 2
umm.... yeah.

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From: K 2 <[email-masked]>
Subject: CFJ 728 (TRUE)
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 08:13:04 -0400 (EDT)

Call for Judgement 728 - August 12, 1999
Subject: Affect or effect?
Initiator: else...if
Judge: Burn the Witch (DEADBEAT)
Judge: Emperor Ai! Pedrito!
Judgement: TRUE

Statement:
        Studge has a Voting Characteristic of 0.

Initiator's Reasoning:
        The question is whether or not the act of changing Studge's VC
to 0 has an effect on anyone else.  The argument advanced to suggest
that it does is that it requires the harfer (in this case the Dungeon
Master) to harf the change.
        The flaw in the arugment is that the Dungeon Master has a
responsibility to harf the game state accurately regardless.  The harfer
has an equal responsibility to scour every message whether or not the
message does anything.  Slakko argues that because he could be
prosecuted for not harfing the change, it should be counted as an
effect, but this is equally true whether or not the message changes the
game state.  If the message does not contain anything regarding Voting
Characteristcs, yet Slakko records a change to the game state by
accident, he is just as prosecutable.  So the change to Studge's VC is
not an effect: it changes the game state, but Slakko's has to do the
same thing regardless of whether or not a characteristic is affected. 
The fact that, in practice, it creates more work for him is an artifice
of the way we do things, not a legal distinction.

Judge's Reasoning:
The effects of lowering the characteristics of Studge definitely
affected Gabriel Drummond-Cole, a human being outside of Acka.  However,
it did not affect Emperor Ai! Pedrito!, Dungeon Master of Ackanomic, in
any way that the game recognizes.  We the court must therefore agree
with the second reasoning put forth by the submitter and rule the CFJ
TRUE.

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

From: Henry Towsner <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: CFJ 728 (TRUE)
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 12:11:36 -0400 (EDT)

>Call for Judgement 728 - August 12, 1999
>Subject: Affect or effect?
>Initiator: else...if
>Judge: Burn the Witch (DEADBEAT)
>Judge: Emperor Ai! Pedrito!
>Judgement: TRUE
>
>Statement:
>        Studge has a Voting Characteristic of 0.
>
>Initiator's Reasoning:
>        The question is whether or not the act of changing Studge's VC
>to 0 has an effect on anyone else.  The argument advanced to suggest
>that it does is that it requires the harfer (in this case the Dungeon
>Master) to harf the change.
>        The flaw in the arugment is that the Dungeon Master has a
>responsibility to harf the game state accurately regardless.  The harfer
>has an equal responsibility to scour every message whether or not the
>message does anything.  Slakko argues that because he could be
>prosecuted for not harfing the change, it should be counted as an
>effect, but this is equally true whether or not the message changes the
>game state.  If the message does not contain anything regarding Voting
>Characteristcs, yet Slakko records a change to the game state by
>accident, he is just as prosecutable.  So the change to Studge's VC is
>not an effect: it changes the game state, but Slakko's has to do the
>same thing regardless of whether or not a characteristic is affected.
>The fact that, in practice, it creates more work for him is an artifice
>of the way we do things, not a legal distinction.
>
>Judge's Reasoning:
>The effects of lowering the characteristics of Studge definitely
>affected Gabriel Drummond-Cole, a human being outside of Acka.  However,
>it did not affect Emperor Ai! Pedrito!, Dungeon Master of Ackanomic, in
>any way that the game recognizes.  We the court must therefore agree
>with the second reasoning put forth by the submitter and rule the CFJ
>TRUE.

	I appeal this judgement.

	In my reasoning on CFJ 727, I wrote, "According to rule 4, natural
persons who are registered players of Ackanomic are entities. Note that
there is no separation between the two. Unlike in some games, there is no
concept of the person having an avatar which is an entity. I, personally,
Henry Towsner the carbon-based life form, am an entity."  Rule 4 says,
"natural persons...are Players."  There are no human beings outside of
Ackanomic, there is no separation of Gabriel Drummond-Cole from Emperor Ai!
Pedrito!.  As the rules stand currently, there is no such thing as Gabriel
Drummond-Cole and Emperor Ai! Pedrito! refers to a specific carbon based
colony of cells which happens to have access to a computer.
	I believe that the judge's verdict was correct, but the wrong
reasoning is just as bad as the wrong verdict.

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

From: Emperor Ai Pedrito <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: CFJ 728 (TRUE)
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 14:57:41 -0400 (EDT)

>	In my reasoning on CFJ 727, I wrote, "According to rule 4, natural
>persons who are registered players of Ackanomic are entities. Note that
>there is no separation between the two. Unlike in some games, there is no
>concept of the person having an avatar which is an entity. I, personally,
>Henry Towsner the carbon-based life form, am an entity."  Rule 4 says,
>"natural persons...are Players."  There are no human beings outside of
>Ackanomic, there is no separation of Gabriel Drummond-Cole from Emperor Ai!
>Pedrito!.  As the rules stand currently, there is no such thing as Gabriel
>Drummond-Cole and Emperor Ai! Pedrito! refers to a specific carbon based
>colony of cells which happens to have access to a computer.
>	I believe that the judge's verdict was correct, but the wrong
>reasoning is just as bad as the wrong verdict.

I do not think you understood what I was trying to say in my verdict.  The
important part is not the distinction between Gabriel Drummond-Cole and
Emperor Ai! Pedrito, but rather the clause "in any way that the game
recognizes."  While it MAY have affected EA!P! in that it lengthened his
email download time, etc., it did not affect em in any way that the game of
Ackanomic tracks.  Therefore, from the standpoint of the game, EA!P! was
not affected.

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

From: Henry Towsner <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: CFJ 728 (TRUE)
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 17:21:33 -0400 (EDT)

>I do not think you understood what I was trying to say in my verdict.  The
>important part is not the distinction between Gabriel Drummond-Cole and
>Emperor Ai! Pedrito, but rather the clause "in any way that the game
>recognizes."  While it MAY have affected EA!P! in that it lengthened his
>email download time, etc., it did not affect em in any way that the game of
>Ackanomic tracks.  Therefore, from the standpoint of the game, EA!P! was
>not affected.

	As far as I know there is no rule which says events the rules
ignore don't happen.

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

From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: CFJ 728 (TRUE)
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 17:37:21 -0400 (EDT)

On Tue, 21 Sep 1999, Henry Towsner wrote:

> 	As far as I know there is no rule which says events the rules
> ignore don't happen.

This is a necessary condition for the concept of game state.  That which
the game "knows about" is part of the game state.  Those things which the
game does not know about are not.  

Events which do not affect the game state do not happen from the frame of
reference of Ackanomic.

IB

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

Subject: CFJ 728 (TRUE?) and P4365
From: Joseph DeVincentis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 18:45:02 -0400 (EDT)

K 2 wrote:
> Call for Judgement 728 - August 12, 1999
> Subject: Affect or effect?
> Initiator: else...if
> Judge: Burn the Witch (DEADBEAT)
> Judge: Emperor Ai! Pedrito!
> Judgement: TRUE

> Statement:
>         Studge has a Voting Characteristic of 0.

If this is indeed true (that Studge has had a VC of 0 since August 12),
about 5 or 6 proposals have had incorrect voting results published since
that time, but (after checking the records to see that he did indeed
cast smaller, legal votes before the 200s in pertinent cases) the only
one where it changes the outcome of a proposal is P4365, the "JT gets
all the offices" proposal.  In the other cases, the only really lasting
effect is that Studge has slightly more mannna than has been reported.

/dev/joe
Tabulator

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

From: Mueller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Elder Sevin
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 19:59:49 -0400 (EDT)

Cthulhu wrote:
>>>I support the nomination of Robert Sevin, aka Tin Observer, to the
>>>Hall of Elders.
>>>
>
>ditto

ditto.

I think that makes it 17 with me.

Studge

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End of ackanomic Digest V4 #255
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