Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

Rules 375-377 require actual, tasteful shrubberies.

Of course there are shrubberies there. The problem is, I think "actual" means slightly more than just "there in the game" in this particular context. To that degree, there are no rules supporting such extranomic requirements, activities, or things, and it would not be wise or in keeping with any game custom I remember/want so I rule in keeping with what I think would be prudent: that this "nomic leaping into the real world" stuff is impossible without very explicit, carefully worded rules.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

Rule 381/0 conflicts with immutable Rule 002/1 and thus has no effect.

Rule 002/1 states that players be know by their "real human fore- and surnames". "a tasteful shrubbery" is not Nick Osborn's real human name, but Rule 381/0 mandates that Nick be called this. Rule 110/0 states that in the event of a conflict between an immutable and a mutable rule, the immutable rule takes precedence. Therefore, Rule 381/0 has no effect on play.

First, I note that despite the obvious presence of two separate statements, conjoined by a conjunction, in Mr. Uckelman's statement, I will rise above pedantry and judge it as I know he would like it to be judged.

Rule 381 states that Nick Osborn shall be "known" as a tasteful shrubbery. Rule 002 states that every player shall be "identified" by his or her corresponding real human fore- and surnames.

So, first, re "identified:" The most appropriate definition seems to be

2 a : to establish the identity of b : to determine the taxonomic position of (a biological specimen)

or, more simply, "identify" means "to name." Thus Rule 002 states that every player shall be named by his or her real name.

As for "known:"

1 a (1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of (2) : to have understanding of <importance of knowing oneself> (3) : to recognize the nature of : DISCERN b (1) : to recognize as being the same as something previously known (2) : to be acquainted or familiar with (3) : to have experience of   2 a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of b : to have a practical understanding of <knows how to write>

Our best alternatives (unless we wish to dig up archaic definitions viz. carnality) seem to be 1 a (1), 1 a (3), 1 b (1), and 2 a.

These denotations are concerned with the true essence of the thing being known, and by them knowledge is either direct perception (of truth, supposing objective reality), or acknowledgement of truth. Here the player formerly known as "Nick Osborn" is, variously, either known to actually be a tasteful shrubbery, at his most basic level, or he is known to be essentially the same as a tasteful shrubbery.

As the notion of "naming" in Rule 002 seems subservient to the concepts of existential essence in Rule 381, I cannot reconcile the statement's claim that Rule 381 is in conflict with Rule 002. The claimant may for some reason wish to appeal with an argument along the lines of "naming defines existence," but recall that the ancient Egyptians believed this - one even had to know the true names of things in order to gain admittance to heaven - and we all know what happened to them.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

When the rules are silent, the only right and proper thing to do with a departed player's Subers is to destroy them.

Joel D Uckelman writes:

>Yes, but there's nothing in the rules that DISALLOWS Nick from determining
>the disposition of his wealth.

There are a few things, actually:

1) Nick is not a player. As such, by game custom, he may take no game actions.

2) Subers are owned by players. As there is no player named Nick Osborn, it does not make sense to talk about Nick Osborn owning Subers.

3) Because Nick is not a player and it does not make sense to talk about Nick Osborn owning Subers, it does not make sense for Nick Osborn to trade (and this should be construed as a trade) Subers to another player.

Rule 346 states "Only rules may create and destroy Subers."; I haven't seen a rule that authorizes the destruction of Subers when I player leaves the game, so it is against the rules for them to be destroyed.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

It is not legal to reapportion or redistribute, in any way, a departed player's Subers unless the rules say so.

Seeing as how it's not legal to do anything with Subers unless the rules say so, deduction tells me that it is not legal to reapportion or redistribute a departed player's Subers.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

Each rule is a game entity.

"Game entity" pretty clearly refers to something dynamic -- that is, something capable of taking actions, voting, etc. The rules just govern the behavior of those "game entities." Granted, the rules don't explicitly define the term "game entity," something that should be addressed in the future, just for clarification. But I think it's clear what this rule refers to. Excuse the preposition.

Ruling: DISMISSED

Statement:

If all rules were repealed then any rule could be created with anyone's command.

I believe that statement's truthfullness cannot be fully evaulated. It seems equally possible that rules could be created by command or that rules could no longer be made by anyone. I can't think of a justification for either one. (Clearly, by our current rules, both are illegal) Also, who really cares?

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

If all rules were repealed then any rule could be created with anyone's command.

R228/0 says:

DISMISSED indicates that a Statement cannot be evaluated as to its veracity, or does not address a rules-related matter.

Clearly this is a rule-related matter - addressing as it does the very nature of the rules and the environment in which they exist.

And R228 goes on to describe the mechanisms for evaluation:

All decisions by all Judges must be made in accordance with all the rules then in effect; but when the rules are silent, consistent, or unclear on the point at issue, then Judges shall consider game-custom and the spirit of the game before applying other standards.

I care because and I want to know what the base state of a rule-less nomic is according to Berserker's "game-custom and the spirit of the game".

I see it like this:

Rule 116/0(i) : Permissibility of the Unprohibited
Whatever is not prohibited or regulated by a rule is permitted and unregulated, with the sole exception of changing the rules, which is permitted only when a rule or set of rules explicitly or implicitly permits it.

Rule 228/0(m) : Judgments
[snip]
All decisions by all Judges must be made in accordance with all the rules then in effect; but when the rules are silent, inconsistent, or unclear on the point at issue, then Judges shall consider game-custom and the spirit of the game before applying other standards.

According to rule 228, our judgment should be in agreement with game-custom and the spirit of the game, as (clearly) the rules are silent on what to do when there are no rules. This spirit seems best conveyed in rule 116; when there are no rules, the "rules" do not explicitly or implicitly permit OR deny ANYTHING. Game custom then says that anything would be permissible, according to 116.

Thus, the statement should be judged TRUE.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

The transaction in which Josh Kortbein claimed to have purchased 108694 wood from the market is illegal.

Prices are recomputed at the beginning of each turn; it's not a running average. The initial average prices were all set via a self-deleting proposal. Thus, said transaction is not possible and the Mueller Maneuver fails in its first incarnation. However, one would be wise to note the ease with which the market can be fucked. This is something we need to either exploit or correct.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

The transaction in which Josh Kortbein claimed to have purchased 108694 wood from the market is illegal.

The original proposal stated:

The Market buys and sells commodities. The Market buys commodities 15% below the average per unit price established for each commodity during the previous two full turns by inter-Player transactions, and sells commodities 15% above that average price, rounded to the nearest hundredth. If a commodity was not sold during the previous turn, the last calculated average is retained.

{{Initial prices use the following averages:

[snip]

}}

Clearly, no wood was transacted during the previous turn, as no wood existed during the previous turn. So we are to be guided by the final sentence of the proposal's first paragraph, "If a commodity was not sold... the last CALCULATED average is retained." (Emphasis mine.)

"Calculated" should be understood to mean "calculated according to the rule of averaging set forth earlier in this paragraph;" there is no other sense in which "calculation" of Market prices is defined in the rules.

This means that the "initial prices" set forth in Mr. Uckelman's proposal are meaningless, as far as we are concerned. We do not know how they were arrived at. Indeed, it is likely that they were completely arbitrary selections. Certainly calling them "averages" does not make them averages in the sense required by this rule. No doubt Mr. Uckelman will agree - he has made clear in the past the distaste with which he regards the improper (i.e., out of line with "real world") naming of game notions. We should not overstep the bounds of the common sense Mr. Uckelman prescribes, by simply covering our eyes and ears and pretending that "average" may mean whatever we wish.

Thus, as I mentioned in a previous message to Mr. Schroeder, this notion of "last calculated average" is problematic. We should not simply make assumptions about what the last calculated average is, or attempt to redefine what "calculated" or "average" mean. We are thus in unregulated territory, as described by rule 116/0:

Rule 116/0(i) : Permissibility of the Unprohibited

Whatever is not prohibited or regulated by a rule is permitted and unregulated, with the sole exception of changing the rules, which is permitted only when a rule or set of rules explicitly or implicitly permits it.

Pedants may object here that transactions are regulated by rules, and so rule 116 does not apply. However, such a reading of the rules is not in keeping with the fine spirit of attention to detail in our fine Nomic. We should get at the deeper issue: are transactions taking place before Market prices have been calculated (according to the rule of averaging) regulated? Clearly not, because of the semantically empty phrase pointed to by Mr. Uckelman and the honorable Mr. Plagge. We might as well slap a phrase, "And monkeys might fly out of my butt," on the rule and claim that transactions taking place before Market prices have been calculated are thusly regulated.

So, then: the action taken by myself, under guidance from wise Mr. Mueller, is unregulated by rule in this game, and is this permissable. If Mr. Uckelman wishes to patch up holes in the economy, he should do so via the lawmaking process, not by attempting to abuse the power of the Judiciary, swaying the Judge with hand-waving arguments composed of capricious and unreasonable redefinitions of words with "common sense" meanings.

Summary: First I run down the whole thing without consideration of Josh's appelate reasoning. It came down to which non-rule specified definition of "full turn" you wanted to use and I did not answer that question, as it seemed fundamentally arbitrary. Then I considered Josh's R116 analysis. After a bit of judicial construction, I determined that the Market rule was incomplete and therefore parts of the Market system were unregulated... and that the Mueller Maneuver filled in this incompleteness via R116 and has now established a precedent which completes the Market rule until such time as it is amended with a fix.

Summary summary: I would rule this FALSE.

Note On The Status Of This Message: This is not the ruling per se. It is my "response" in the sense of the meaning in R228/0.
------

OK, First we establish the simple stuff (which turns out not to be so simple) then move through each claimed step of the process.

1. Tom had more than enough Subers to buy a single wood.

2. Tom followed the rules on the Market and purchased wood from it.

3. Tom offered this to Josh for S0.01 and he accepted.

Was step three legal?

R399/1 says: "Property is any game-defined object that is both ownable and tradable."

R403/1 says that wood is a property.

Trading property is not defined in the rules. Sale of property is permitted through R339 with auctions. Trade of Subers is permitted in R346 with "Players may trade Subers freely iff all players involved in the trade publicly consent. However, a player may at no time possess less than 0 Subers."

I believe that because wood is property and property can be traded, we may safely assume that the only rule defined "trading" mechanism can be grafted onto our commodities. Auction is not necessary to pass commodities between players and step three was therefore permissable when both Tom and Josh consented.

4. The new market price of wood became .01 Subers.

This seems to be the crux of the issue.

Here is the full text of the proposal which spawned the issue:

*******************

Proposal 404
By: Joel Uckelman
Passed (4-2-0-3)

The Market buys and sells commodities. The Market buys commodities 15% below the average per unit price established for each commodity during the previous two full turns by inter-Player transactions, and sells commodities 15% above that average price, rounded to the nearest hundredth. If a commodity was not sold during the previous turn, the last calculated average is retained.

{{Initial prices use the following averages:

wood - 2
livestock - 3
ore - 3
coal - 3
energy - 0.5
lumber - 13
meat - 6
steel - 14
spam - 10
widgets - 22 }}

**********************

The important part seems to be "average per unit price established for each commodity during the previous two full turns by inter-Player transactions".

(Note that transactions can include sale, whether by auction or not, or trade; we are consistent with the decision regarding the validity of step three.)

The rule indicates that the average will be in the form "X Subers / commodity". It seems fairly clear that we should consider each individual commodity in each transaction, so as to fully comply with the rule and consider each individual wood as being covered by the rules. That is, a 10 wood transaction and a 100 wood transaction would be considered differently weighted with respect to their effects on the average.

Then the question becomes: "Which transactions are in a time period that we are able to consider?" and the rules answer "the previous two full turns". But what does this mean?

R202 (quoted in its entirety here) says:

*********

One turn consists of four parts in this order: (1) a proposal and debate period,(2) a voting period, (3) voting-related scoring, and (4) dead time.

Any Player may make a new Proposal during the proposal and debate period. The duration of the proposal and debate period shall be 204 hours (8.5 days).

Immediately upon the expiration of the proposal and debate period, a call for votes is automatically made on all active Proposals only, thus beginning the voting period.

Voting-related scoring occurs instantaneously upon the expiration of the voting period.

Dead time occurs immediately following voting-related scoring. Dead time shall expire upon the completion of any additional actions that the Rules specify must be completed before a turn may end. If no such actions exist, the duration of dead time shall be instantaneous.

The next turn shall begin immediately following the completion of the previous turn.

All time periods specified herein are to be considered "reasonable" for the purposes of Judgments.

**************

A "full turn" is not described directly. I think there are two basic models for a "full turn" so far assumed: A Mueller Maneuver Turn and a Counter Maneuver Turn.

The Counter Maneuver Turn is like a speedometer with no tenths: it clicks over between part four and part one and if you are in part three, transactions don't count as having been part of the "previous full turn" until the next click.

The Mueller Maneuver Turn works less like integers and more like real numbers. A full turn is a unit of time and the difference between one instant and the next could be a full turn so long as each is the same distance from their previous click. This concept of a full turn would result in fluctuations of the average in question from hour to hour.

Which version is meant is not specified by the rules.

BUT WAIT, HOLD EVERYTHING!!

At this point I WOULD have stopped, decided which system should be used and called the case over, but Josh appeals with a citation of R116 and a criticism of the mutiple meanings of the term average in the Market rule and proposal.... SO let's look there before deciding once and for all.

Josh basically says in his request for appeal that: (1) The averages are not properly established, and therefore (2) the rules are fuzzy to the point of not regulating this situation, and therefore (3) R116 takes over and permits just about anything.

In order that this be more clearly analyzed, here is the text of R116:

**************

Rule 116

Whatever is not prohibited or regulated by a rule is permitted and unregulated, with the sole exception of changing the rules, which is permitted only when a rule or set of rules explicitly or implicitly permits it.

**************

This is clearly fuzzy itself, so I will quickly make up a Doctrine of Explicit Spirit and claim that past RFJs, including their reasoning, become a guide the "the spirit of the game."

This noted, RFJ 6 established that all game actions are regulated, but I can only find one reference to game actions in R220/1 where it says (regarding the effects of RFJs) "Game actions found to be illegal must be undone, as must all actions made possible solely or in part by said illegal actions." So I don't see how RFJ 6 speaks to this case.

RFJ 7 speaks only to the _permissability_ of various rule changes and not to regulation, but RFJ 8 is more meaty. RFJ 8 proposes an "Uckelman principle" that says:

Rule 116 means actions which are not specifically prohibited or regulated in the rules are permissible. Even though a it may regard a mechanism of the game which is regulated by rules, as long as a certain action is specifically neither prohibited nor regulated, it is legal. As an example, even though scoring, the assignation of points, etc. are regulated by the rules, there is no rule regarding an instance where 'Matthew Potter arbitrarily reduces Joel Uckelman's score to -10.' As such, according to the Uckelman principle, my doing so is legal.

Note that the decision indicated that the term "regulated" means that pretty much anything addressed by the rules is safe from monkeying via the Uckelman principle.

If RFJ 8 limited the scope of the anarchic Uckelman principle to anything not discussed by the rules (which means that you basically can set up a "black market" nomic so long as it never touches the legit world) then RFJ 10 gives a small edge to anarchy itself by noting that broad topic areas regarding rule defined things (like point TRADING) are still permissable.

I note that nothing deals with the situation where a rule described system is simply inconsistent.

For that reason, I feel safe in establishing a principle which seems as though it would not conflict with any overtly established custom, and being useful would be in keeping with game spirit.

The Berserker Incompletness Theorem: When rule defined things have a rule defined system which is incompletely structured or specified then this area is considered un-regulated. The first acts of players within this new (broken) system are permitted so long as they violate no obvious phrases or rules. Moreover they serve as precedent setting actions with which to complete the incomplete system until such time as things are better fleshed out within the rules themselves.

I think this is a useful custom to have lying around in case we ever have a worse crisis than a fuzzy Market valuing system. It also lets us escape the fundamentally arbitrary question of whether the Mueller Maneuver Turn or the Counter Maneuver Turn is the correct interpretation.

After LOTS of wrangling and text sampling, we finally have a clear decision procedure: Determine whether R404 is incomplete. If so, the Mueller Maneuver fills in the imcompleteness as a precedent.

R404 says in part "If a commodity was not sold during the previous turn, the last calculated average is retained." By either turn system (prior to the Mueller Maneuver) there were no commodities sold. What, then, was the last CALCULATED average. There was none. An attempt to fill this hole was made with the self-deleting text in P404. But as Josh points out in his appeal, the values asserted in P404 are not averages, in the sense that we can look back and recalibrate a new average after one wood has been sold: they are not calculated.

P404 provided fundamentally unusable values... Recall the steps outlined at the beginning of this analysis:

1. Tom had more than enough Subers to buy a single wood.

2. Tom followed the rules on the Market and purchased wood from it.

3. Tom offered this to Josh for S0.01 and he accepted.

4. The new market price of wood became .01 Subers.

Armed with this knowledge of incompletness we can see that in fact step 2 was impossible due to the value of wood being asserted to be 2 but also supposedly being the last CALCULATED value. Luckily, the Market still works via the BIT (Berserker Incompletness Theorem). Step 2 was possible due to R116 and similar actions with other commodities will be justified by the BIT.

And so on. Everything involved in the Mueller Maneuver took place in the hole and the hole is now plugged with the new precedent.

Josh's transaction was legal and so this RFJ's statement is FALSE.

dissolved

Ruling:

Statement:

The transaction in which Josh Kortbein claimed to have purchased 108694 wood from the market is illegal.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

Every player loses 10 points due to rule 403/1.

The relevant paragraphs are

Payment of upkeep, consumption of spam, and expenditure of widgets occur at the beginning of each turn. Production of commodities and construction occur during dead time.

and

Each game entity consumes 1 spam per turn or, if a Player, suffers a 10 point penalty; other game entities may not act during any turn in which they do not consume spam.

Rule 403 was rule from the beginning of this turn. As such, all players (because players are game entities) were required to consume 1 spam, which no player yet owned. No players consumed this spam, so according to rule 403, all players lose 10 points.

This may also have interesting consequences as far as game entities go, but from the quick look I took it appears Osborn's Demon could still be considered able to vote.

My reading of the rules: as long as a player consumes spam at some point during the turn, there's no problem. If e acts in a turn and has not consumed spam by the end of it, though, then e is fined the ten points. So everyone hurry up and eat some spam.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

Every player loses 10 points due to rule 403/1.

Mr. Plagge's judgment is clearly overlooking the phrase "spam consumption occurs at the beginning of the turn." He can "read" all he wants but that doesn't make spam consumption NOT happen later than the beginning of the turn, according to the rule.

The rule clearly states, "Payment of upkeep, consumption of spam, and expenditure of widgets occur at the beginning of each turn." The rule pertaining to this RFJ has been modified, but at the time the statement was made, spam was consumed at the beginning of the turn.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

The Treasury Minister can never mint more than 2 Subers per turn, and thus the transaction in which Joel Uckelman claimed to sell 1 spam to the Treasury for 1 trillion Subers was illegal.

Clearly, rule 402 allows the Treasury Minister to mint Subers. For any number of Subers N greater than 2, minting N Subers is the same thing as minting 2 Subers, then minting N - 2 Subers. Thus, the Treasury Minister can never mint more than 2 Subers per turn, because any Subers in excess of those 2 cannot be minted until the next turn (to which the same prohibition on minting more than 2 Subers applies).

Nice try, Josh, but you've been had.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

The Treasury Minister can never mint more than 2 Subers per turn, and thus the transaction in which Joel Uckelman claimed to sell 1 spam to the Treasury for 1 trillion Subers was illegal.

I appeal this judgment on the grounds that it was not defended. Judgments are not required to contain analysis portions, but the lack of one in this judgment makes it a weak claim to truth at best.

Rule 402/1 states:

The Treasury Minister, at his/her discretion, but no more than once per turn, may:

1. Auction public lands.
2. Authorize the minting of Subers, to be placed in the Treasury.
3. Authorize the destruction of Subers, to be removed from the Treasury.

My interpretation of this is that the Treasury Minister authorizes the minting of Subers, but does not do the actual minting. Thus, the TM can authorize the minting only once per turn, and then the Subers are placed in the Treasury by whatever unnamed force does the actual minting. Thus, the TM can't mint Subers, but can authorize the minting of however many Subers e feels like, so the entire move was legal.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

There are no rules which actually state that they create Subers, so no Subers can be minted as a result of the Treasury Minister's authorization, under the current ruleset.

The Subers rule says only rules may create and destroy Subers. The rule for the Treasury says the Treasury holds the "proceeds from the minting of new Subers." The Treasury Minister rule says that the Minister may "[a]uthorize the minting of Subers, to be placed in the Treasury." Nowhere do I see anything which actually mints Subers, though there seems to be a lot of discussion about what to do with the final product.

I note furthermore that this means, until the rules are changed, no Subers can be minted at all.

A consqeuence of this impossibility is that Joel could not have sold 1 spam to the Treasury for 1 trillion Subers, because those Subers could not have been available as payment.

R346/2 states, in part, that "only rules may create and destroy Subers," so prima facie, it seems that the statement should be ruled TRUE; however, 402/1 "2. Authorize[s] the minting of Subers, to be placed in the Treasury"  and  "3. Authorize[s] the destruction of Subers, to be removed from the Treasury," and R402/1 takes precedence by R211/1. The question here seems, then, to lie in whether the two rules do indeed contradict each other.

R346/2 prohibits the creation and destruction of Subers by anything save rules -- i.e. only rules are _authorized_ to create Subers. R402/1 confers on the Treasury Minister the right to authorize such creation and destruction. Thus, R402/1 clearly takes precedence in this case.

At the time of the RFJ, there were no rules governing the creation of Subers after the Treasury Minister grants authorization; as such, the creation of Subers upon authorization from the Treasury Minister is permitted under R116/0. Whoever (or whatever) the Treasury Minister grants authorization to mint Subers may then mint them in any number e so chooses.

[NB: The statement's antecedent, "There are no rules which actually state that they create Subers," is actually false, as R347/3 explicitly creates Subers when new players enter the game. Strictly speaking, then, the statement is true, but only in a vacuous sense. By my analysis, however, the consequent is always false, so if the antecedent were true, the statement would be false in a meaningful way. As the complainant certainly overlooked R347/3 and took the antecedent to be indisputably true, and as nothing is served by ruling true due to a false antecedent, I feel justified ruling the statement false.]

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

There are no rules which actually state that they create Subers, so no Subers can be minted as a result of the Treasury Minister's authorization, under the current ruleset.

I appeal this statement on the grounds that its judge deliberately ignored well-established rules of logic.

I'm going to disregard the first part, and just look at what is said after "so." Rule 346/2 says only rules may create and destroy subers. Rule 402/1 allows the TM to authorize the minting of Subers to be placed in the treasury. This implies that Subers are created somewhere and placed in the treasury. Since 346 does not require that Subers be explicitly created by the rules, its good enough for me.

Ed

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

I concur with the final decision (though it wrecks my fortune).

Moreover, I note that the statement does include the first clause with a linking "so". I've seen this read as a logical therefore. I note that a logical statement only discusses the concurance of certain things being true in certain patterns and fails to capture the english language implications of causation. We might agree that some pattern of truth holds but that such a thing is an accident and then still rule the statement false because we fail to find a substructure of analysis which creates the pattern.

If we use this second interpretation (English implication not logical formalism) then the statement is more emphatically false, because the causation does not exist.

Tom

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

The entity commonly identified as "Nick Osborn" is, in fact a "tasteful shrubbery," and should be recognized as such by Berserker Nomic.

Rule 381/0 would appear to support this; however, it has never been followed.

All references to "Nick Osborn" below are merely meta-references. Of course, that token and "a tasteful shrubbery" are precisely identical according to rule 381.

As Mr. Uckelman has pointed out, the contemporary philosophical definition of knowledge is "true, justified belief." Thus, we are directed by rule 381 to have true, justified belief in the fact that Nick Osborn is a tasteful shrubbery. As all we have are the rules, all of our true, justified beliefs must stem from rules, so there is naught to dissuade us from assigning Nick Osborn such an appellation.

Furthermore: the familiar meaning of "known" is "referred to as," so to refer to "a tasteful shrubbery" as such is only in accordance with the rules.

Finally: are "Nick Osborn" and "a tasteful shrubbery" really identical? In one sense, yes. But in another, "a tasteful shrubbery" has primacy over "Nick Osborn"; in essense, it becomes our only gateway into "Nick Osborn." This is due to the wording of rule 381; in a construction like "A shall be known as B," A becomes a discarded token, no longer to be used when referring to the object to henceforth be known as B. We should do similarly with "a tasteful shrubbery," or all is lost.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

Since the passage of Rule 385/0, Proposals that have rewarded or penalized Players voting on them should have been prohibited.

385 would appear to have made impossible the passage of any Proposals that received any opposed votes, as Players voting in the opposed minority are rewarded, or which the Player initiating the Proposal voted upon, as the Proposer would be rewarded for passing a Proposal.

As Mr. Uckelman states in his argument on this matter, rule 385 makes statements about _proposals_ which reward or penalize players voting on them. He claims that all point relevant point changes here are effected by rules.

Under Mr. Uckelman's analysis, then, the above statement is vacuously true, as it is merely a reading of 385.

However, cast in a different light Mr. Osborn's statement begins to take on a different meaning. According to Mr. Uckelman, these point changes are caused by rules.

These rules do not cause point changes by themselves; they require proposal passage or failure to do so. In that sense, then, these point changes are _never_ caused solely by rules, but always by rules in concert with the relevant game events, namely proposal passage or failure.

This dual causal nature complicates matters; if rules, as well as voting results, are required for these point changes, can we point to a single thing or group of things which could be said to be "responsible" for rewarding or penalizing a player or players?

Consider the relevant scoring rules. Do they ever reward or penalize players, in the absence of any voting results? Certainly not. However, as soon as voting results are finalized, we consider the appropriate players to have been rewarded or penalized. Clearly the results have primacy when determining causality.

These voting results are totally linked to the proposals for which they are results. Thus, the court finds that every proposal since 385 which has either rewarded or penalized a player or players should have been prohibited. The action to be taken, then, is to strike all such game actions [[until dead]].

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

Since the passage of Rule 385/0, Proposals that have rewarded or penalized Players voting on them should have been prohibited.

The causality implied by R385 is a direct one -- proposals do not cause points to be awarded. Rather, proposals cause certain voting results. In turn, voting results trigger the awarding of points through rules. No prohibition of rules awarding points exists, nor does any on on voting results causing rules to award points, nor any on proposals causing voting resutlts. None of the steps in the current process are prohibited. Therefore, R385 only prevents proposals that directly award points.

The statement is simply a recapitulation of Rule 385, and as such, is true. The issue of whether any Proposals have actually violated Rule 385 since its passage does not affect the veracity of the statement itself, and therefore is not germane and can be disregarded.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

The player referred to as 'X' in Rule 357/1 is not necessarily the Provocateur.

The rule doesn't say that the Provocateur is 'X'.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

The player referred to as 'X' in Rule 357/1 is not necessarily the Provocateur.

357/1 does not identify the Provocateur with "X." -- Nick

Ed appealed this for no apparent reason, and I find his original analysis to be sound. -- Joel

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

Players may vote by proxy while in Limbo.

A player only needs to be out of Limbo to assign the person who votes by proxy for them, not necessarily while the voting is taking place.

The rules I use are (in precedence order):

Rule 105/2 (i) : Franchise
Rule 384/0 (m) : Osborn's Demon
Rule 323/0 (m) : Absentee and Proxy Voting
Rule 319/0 (m) : Limbo

105 tells us that we are eligible voters when out of Limbo. 384 tells us that there is at least one eligible voter, who is not covered by 105.

Therefore, Rule 105 seems to say nothing about Players in Limbo.

Therefore I look at 323 and 319. Since 323 takes precendence before 319, 323's 'A Player may submit a ballot by proxy' beats 319's 's/he is neither able nor required to perform any Berserker Nomic-related actions[...]'

[It looks like Prop 330 is the culprit here. That proposal turned the precedence upside-down, causing some anomalies in the rules adopted before that.]

Ruling: DISMISSED

Statement:

Players may vote by proxy while in Limbo.

Ole's analysis makes an unwarrented generalization: not only is Rule 384/0 is an exception to voting rules, it does not apply to _players_, but to another type of game entity. Therefore, his conclusion about the inapplicability of Rule 105/2 is faulty.

Before one may cast a vote, one must be an eligible voter. Absentee and proxy voting, as types of voting, should still be subject to this restriction, dispite the fact that the voting is temporally separated from the voting period. Rule 105 has the highest precedence of any applicable rule in this matter, and as such, should prevent players in Limbo from voting.

The Statement in RFJ 62 is ambiguous. Voting by proxy consists of two actions, the voter's appointment of a proxy and the proxy's submission of a ballot. The appointment of a proxy must take place out of Limbo. The ballot submission is not constrained by the voter's Limbo status; however a proxy may not submit a ballot while in Limbo himself.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

The Administrator, by not referring to the player formerly known as "Nick Osborn" as "a tasteful shrubbery," is in violation of the spirit of the rules.

Spirit, simply because Joel will argue that the web page is only an unofficial record, and he can keep it however the fuck he wants to. I think some compliance with game custom is in order, despite what Joel would like to have on the web page.

Rule 381/0 contains no mention of Nick Osborn having stopped being Nick Osborn. Nothing prevents the same entity from being known as both Nick Osborn and "a tasteful shrubbery".

Notice, btw, the absence of "" around Nick Osborn.

Ruling: DISMISSED

Statement:

Blank lines are lines, too.

"Lines" appears in the Rule set in Rule 357. The statement must be judged as it refers to  Rule 357, or it is not a Rules related matter and must be dismissed.

Rule 357 refers to "a public statement of more than 20 lines." Blank lines contain no statement. Because lines are only germain to the Rule set as they relate to the volume of a statement, a blank line is not germain to the Rule set. "Blank lines" is not a Rules related concept. The statement is not a Rules-related matter.

Ruling: DISMISSED

Statement:

If a Player takes an action that is retroactive, what would be the consequences on actions taken by the same Player, or other Player, after the original action?

Since Joel has posted another Shaming, does that mean that his first one didn't really happen? And consequently all actions taken after his original shaming did not occur? Does RJ66 really exist since it was in response to questions raised by the original Shaming?

A question cannot be evaluated as true or false.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

Rule #357/1 does not allow for multiple Shamings to be made.

I am personally of the opinion that Joel's second Shaming was too late, but I want the multiple shaming cleared up first.

It is the judgement of this court that the ruling shall be FALSE. There is no provision in the rule 357 that does not allow more than one Shaming to be made, so we fall back upon, again, rule 116/0. Since multiple Shamings are not prohibited in the rule, they are allowable.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

In rule 357/1, the first Shaming made is the only one that may satisfy the conditions of the rule, for a particular (potential) lynching.

The statement submitted is fairly self-evident. However, note that rule 357 specifies guidelines for a legal shaming. In this instance, Joel's first post that claimed to be a "shaming" did not meet the guidelines, and thus was not a legal shaming. The revised version was the first shaming he made, and it therefore stands.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

The shaming by the Crowd Shaming must be made 24 hours after the Mob is formed.

Rule 357/1 states:

For the next 72 hours, players may make statements to the effect that they join. The Mob. At the end of this time, if three or more players, excluding the Provocateur and the Inciter, joined the mob then, 24 hours later, the Provocateur is burned at the stake. During this 24 hour period, a player who has not participated in the above process, referred to as The Crowd Shamer, may make a public statement...

Thus a Crowd Shamer must make his or her statement between 72 and 96 hours after the Inciter has made his or her public statement.  Since the rule isn't specific as to whether the Mob is formed when three people join it or when the 72 hours has expired, I felt it necessary to rule the statemetn false.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

The results of the last election are invalid, because Ole Andersen's votes were not randomly rearranged amongst the proposals on the ballot (after he cast them).

The Spare Tire rule says that the tire shall have the effect on its posessor as dictated by the plurality of Spare Tired Creeds. Three players have creeds, and two of those agree on the effects of the Tire. Thus, the Tire's effects should have been taken into account during the last round of voting.

Those who may wish to claim that players without Spare Tire Creeds in fact have identical, null creeds may wish to consult the portion of the rule which says "Each player _may_ make a statement..." I read this as meaning that a player's STC does not exist before e makes such a statement, which only three players have done.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

The results of the last election are invalid, because Ole Andersen's votes were not randomly rearranged amongst the proposals on the ballot (after he cast them).

[I had simply forgotten to account for the Spare Tire's effects on voting. -- JU]

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

All references to non-Spivak third person pronouns must be understood literally.

We have Spivak pronouns so that there is no confusion of gender of pronouns. It would thus be sloppy of us to treat non-Spivak pronouns as if they were gender-neutral, since we have a more clear-cut method of interpretation available.

Ruling: FALSE

Statement:

All references to non-Spivak third person pronouns must be understood literally.

Before Spivak pronouns were introduced, gendered pronouns in the ruleset were understood to address both genders. The Spivak proposal did not change the meaning of pre-existing pronouns; rather, it re-mapped them to the Spivak pronouns:

"The following table entries, known as Spivak pronouns, shall be understood to take the places of the standard English pronouns whose table entries they occupy." (R417/0)

Thus, gendered pronouns pose merely an aesthetic rather than a substantial problem as is supposed by Mr. Kortbein and Mr. Andersen, and the statement should be FALSE.

[Nick Osborn:] For my part, I rule False. Literal interpretation is valid, but there are other valid forms of interpretation. In this case, game tradition should guide us in choosing a form of interpretation. In the past third person pronouns were not interpreted literally, so I see no reason to change game tradition.

However, if we are ever in a situation where game tradition does not indicate the preferred form of interpretation, we may have to declare a victor.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

Rule 473/0 prohibits a Player from making more than one slack transfer per turn.

According to Rule 473, "Each Player may, once per turn, transfer one (1) slack from one Player, hereafter known as the Victim, to another Player, hereafter known as the Recipient."

I hold that the clause "once per turn" is rightly applied to the action of slack transfer in general rather than any particular slack transfer. E.g., if Josh, in one turn, did the following:

Joel, 1 slack -> Josh
Ole, 1 slack -> Mary

he would be in violation of R473. There is no dispute as to the legality of the first move, which makes the following statement true: (A1) "Josh has transfered one slack from Joel to himself." In it's more general form, it could be rendered as (A2) "A player has transfered one slack from one Player to another Player. The second action, if legal would make the following statement true -- (B1)"Josh has transfered one slack from Ole to Mary" -- and thus make (B2) true as well: "A player has transferred one slack from one Player to another Player." The conjunction of B1 and B2 leads to "A player has twice transferred one slack from one Player to another Player"; however, this contradicts R473: "Each player may, once per turn, ..." Thus, by reductio ad absurdum, we can see that B2 (and therefore B1) must be false, and the second transfer is illegal.

Of course the pertinent sentence is:

Each Player may, once per turn, transfer one (1) slack from one Player, hereafter known as the Victim, to another Player, hereafter known as the Recipient.

It would seem rather obvious to me what this sentence says. Once the player transfers slack, the following things happen:

1. A player is designated a Victim
2. Another player is designated a Recipient
3. One slack is transfered from the Victim to the Recipient.

This set of actions, according to the most sensible reading of this rule, may happen once per player per turn. Josh's claim is not a reasonable reading of this rule. By being intentionally obtuse and confusing what should be a very clear issue, he is showing early signs of pinkness.

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

Rule 473/0 prohibits a Player from making more than one slack transfer per turn.

Each Player may, once per turn, . In this case is "transfer one (1) slack from one Player, hereafter known as the Victim, to another Player, hereafter known as the Recipient."

Thus a Player can only once per turn.

Now, the says they can transfer one slack to another player. That's it, just one slack can be transferred.

Ruling: DISMISSED

Statement:

The second Rule created by Proposal 473 should have number 472.

I forgot to specify the number for the second rule to be created, and there are no guidelines in the rules for what to do if this happens. As such, I should be able to specify some unused number now.

Why 472 instead of some other number? 474 would cause there to be no Proposal 474, and I would prefer that the Proposals remain continuiously numbered. Numbers much lower than 473 would cause the two slack rules to appear far appart in the numerical ruleset. Giving the rule no number at all would be legal, but would result in there being no up-to-date ruleset until the beginning of summer, as I would have to rewrite the munge to accomodate it.

This is false; it assumes that the rules can _only_ be updated through the munge. The numberless rule could in fact be included by hand. I note that here, also, you basically give arguments from personal taste. The key point here is that you say "should have" and "should be able to."

If you are arguing that these are _necessary_, then you haven't presented an argument. If you're just arguing that these are permissable, then what's stopping you? Anything not regulated by the rules...

Ruling: TRUE

Statement:

Ole Anderson should be burned at the stake.

From Case#70, "a Crowd Shamer must make his or her statement between 72 and 96 hours after the Inciter has made his or her public statement."

Since I incite the crowd on 26 March, 16:34 CST, then the shaming should have been made between 29 March, 16:34 CST and 30 March, 16:34 CST. However the shaming was made at 29 March, 16:16 CST. This is 18 minutes _prior_ to the time that a shaming should be made. Thus, Ole should be burned at the stake.

First of all I will compain to everyone, I am using the times given within the message as the times the messages were sent out, and they all seem to be slightly different from what is given in the complaints. The time Mary sent her message with the subject "Nomic: Public Lynching," inciting the crowd is given as 19:34:22 -0700 and it was delivered by majordomo at 20:40:19 CST, I will use the time 20:34:22 CST as the time the message was sent. Thus the shaming must be done between 72 and 96 hours after that, which gives the times of 20:34:22 CST, March 29 and 20:34:22, March 30.

I received a message from Uckelman at 16:16:54 CST which would confirm the statement given, but the message only contained the line, "Ok, now that it's the right time, I'm going to try this again... ", there was no shaming in this message.  The next message at 17:54:55 CST did contain the actual shaming, but it was before the time requirement of 20:34:22 CST.

Therefore, I must rule this statement TRUE.

I looked quite a bit to try to disprove this statement, but as the only source of data I have is from my personal Nomic mail folder and I compared the date and time line with the majordomo date and time line, and all the messages had the same date on them at least 3 times (within a few minutes of acceptable error and transfer time), so I was required to use those dates as accurate ones.  I could not find any message by Mary sent at 16:34 CDT (-0600), which would be 15:34 -0700 hours. The only messages from her that day were on 19:13:12 -0700 (Re: Nomic Scoring) and at 19:34:22 -0700 (Nomic: Public Lynching), both of which are after the given 16:34 CDT (15:34 -0700).