From owner-nomic-official@teleport.com Fri Jun 7 09:27:03 1996 Received: from desiree.teleport.com (desiree.teleport.com [192.108.254.21]) by Shamino.quincy.edu (8.6.12/8.6.9) with ESMTP id JAA07645 for ; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 09:26:13 -0500 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) by desiree.teleport.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA03278; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 07:17:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by desiree.teleport.com (bulk_mailer v1.3); Fri, 7 Jun 1996 07:17:17 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by desiree.teleport.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id HAA03262 for nomic-official-outgoing; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 07:17:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk (exim@heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk [128.232.0.11]) by desiree.teleport.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA03197 for ; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 07:17:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from woodcock.cl.cam.ac.uk [128.232.2.209] (mn200) by heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 0.51 #8) id E0uS2Lc-00035Q-00; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 15:17:08 +0100 Received: by woodcock.cl.cam.ac.uk (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3) id AA19692; Fri, 7 Jun 96 15:17:07 BST Date: Fri, 7 Jun 96 15:17:07 BST Message-Id: <9606071417.AA19692@woodcock.cl.cam.ac.uk> From: Michael Norrish To: nomic-official@teleport.com Subject: OFF: (CotC) CFJ 873 judged FALSE Sender: owner-nomic-official@teleport.com Reply-To: nomic-discussion@teleport.com Precedence: bulk Status: RO (Note, Andre will receive the standard judicial salary of three points at the end of the week, if this judgement is not appealed.) ====================================================================== CFJ 873 "Rule 833 should be interpreted to mean that if a Proposal receives exactly one more Vote FOR than AGAINST, or exactly one more Vote AGAINST than FOR, and the Assessor Voted on that Proposal and did not abstain, then the Assessor's Vote does not count toward determining the F-A award or penalty for that Proposal." ====================================================================== Judge: Andre Judgement: FALSE Eligible: Andre, Chuck, elJefe, favor, Jtael, KoJen, Michael, Murphy, Oerjan, Steve, Swann, Vanyel, Zefram Not eligible: Caller: Morendil Barred: Kelly On hold: ====================================================================== History: Called by Morendil, Mon, 3 Jun 1996 23:23:24 +0100 Assigned to Andre, Tue, 4 Jun 96 9:32:39 GMT Judged by Andre, Fri, 7 Jun 96 14:06:45 METDST Judgement delivered, as of this message ====================================================================== Judge's verdict and arguments: At first I wanted to decline this Judgement, my redenation being something like this: I agree with the Caller that, in absence of any evidence of the contrary under the rules, a 'tie-breaking vote' is a vote breaking a tie. However, this does not NECESSARILY lead to the statement in the CFJ. The problem is with the word 'tie'. There are 2 possible readings, neither of which is wrong at first sight: 1. tie === equality According to this definition, the votes are tied, when there are as many votes for as against. 2. tie === undecided According to this definition, the votes are tied, when the proposal, does clearly pass nor clearly fail. The rules do not give a clear decision, so we turn to (rule 217) "game custom, commonsense, past Judgements, and the best interests of the game." I don't think there are past Judgements on this subject, and the importance of the matter is not big enough to let the interests of the game be the main criterion. The other 2 both could lead to both interpretations: 1. Game custom or commonsense say, that, if possible, a reading should be given that gives a certain rule or part of a rule, some meaning. The given Paragraph of Rule 833 has a real meaning under interpretation 1, but not under interpretation 2, which makes interpretation 1 more natural. 2. But, they also say, that, if possible, meanings of Game Terms change as little as possible when something is changed. Especially, the removal of the 'real' Tiebreaking vote from the ruleset should not change the meaning of the word 'Tie'. Before this rulechange on a Proposal with AI=3 a Tie was reached when there was exactly a 3:1 majority in favour of the Proposal. Which is consistent with interpretation 2, but not with interpretation 1. To me, then, the fight between the 2 meanings is still tied (pun intended), and the tie-breaker, IMO, should be found within the meaning of the word in everyday English. And that's where I would have declined, to leave the question to some native Speaker. I think I would have, at least. However, then I was notified of the fact that elJefe had found the Statement trivially FALSE. If namely the Assessor has voted AGAINST a Proposal with exactly one more Vote FOR than AGAINST, that vote cannot be called tie-breaking, whichever way one stretches the word 'tie'. Which makes the CFJ as stated trivially FALSE. This all causes the following actions: 1. I judge this CFJ FALSE 2. I make myself ineligible for CFJ 874. (CotC, take note!) ====================================================================== (Caller's) Arguments: I will use the instance I recently pointed out as an example : (From the Assessor's Report) 2610 Antivirus FAILS 5-6 (1) F-A : -1 I note that if not for the Assessor's Vote, the Vote on this Proposal would have been a 5-5 tie. I therefore claim that the following in Rule 833 applies : --- Rule 833/4 (Mutable, MI=1) Reward or Penalty for Proposing .../... For the purpose of this Rule, Votes by Voting Entities which are not Players do not count, nor does any tiebreaking Vote cast by the Assessor. --- Since no other Rule defines what a 'tiebreaking Vote cast by the Assessor' is any longer, I submit that this should be taken to have its usual meaning, that is, a Vote which breaks a tie. ======================================================================