From owner-nomic-business@teleport.com  Thu Mar 28 07:21:45 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 HAA12559 for <blahedo@quincy.edu>; Thu, 28 Mar 1996 07:21:43 -0600
Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) by desiree.teleport.com (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id FAA27402; Thu, 28 Mar 1996 05:15:35 -0800
Received: by desiree.teleport.com (bulk_mailer v1.3); Thu, 28 Mar 1996 05:15:34 -0800
Received: (from daemon@localhost) by desiree.teleport.com (8.6.12/8.6.9) id FAA27382 for nomic-business-outgoing; Thu, 28 Mar 1996 05:15:33 -0800
Received: from wing3.wing.rug.nl (wing3.wing.rug.nl [129.125.21.3]) by desiree.teleport.com (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id FAA27274 for <nomic-business@teleport.com>; Thu, 28 Mar 1996 05:15:19 -0800
Message-Id: <199603281315.FAA27274@desiree.teleport.com>
Received: by wing3.wing.rug.nl
	(1.37.109.8/16.2) id AA05980; Thu, 28 Mar 1996 14:13:20 +0100
From: Andre Engels <csg419@wing.rug.nl>
Subject: BUS: Stare Decisis
To: nomic-business@teleport.com
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 96 14:13:20 MET
Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85]
Sender: owner-nomic-business@teleport.com
Reply-To: nomic-discussion@teleport.com
Precedence: bulk
Status: RO

Here's the new Stare Decisis-list:

See for the subject 'Game Entities (general)' Rule 1011
See for the subject 'Timing' Rule 478

Interpretations of Rules, general (CFJ's before 840 are not included here):
favor, 843:
If a Rule says 'X and Y must happen', and X is impossible, or disallowed by
a higher-precedene Rule, this does not stop Y from happening.
Swann, 861:
If a Rule says 'if X cannot happen, then Y will occur', then Y will happen
if there is no Rule which allows X to happen, even though the Rules might be
changed in such a way that X can happen.

101:
Oerjan, 024:
Players have to abide to the Rules even in out-of-game actions.
???, ???:
"abide by all the Rules" means the Rules as a whole, not necessarily each
individual Rule
Court of Appeal, 825:
If Rule 101 would be repealed the Players would still be forced to abide by
the Rules.
Vlad, 837:
No Rule has coercive force on a person who is not a Player.

105:
Chuck, 708:
An Amendment of a non-existing Rule is not a legal Rulechange.

108:
Michael, 001:
This does not forbid Rules to be explicitly dependent on circumstances before
they are enacted, for example the vote on the Proposal that created the Rule.

113:
Michael, 764:
0erjan, 826:
Zefram, upheld by Court of Appeal, 856:
The second sentence is only a consequence of the first, not an independent 
statement.
Even if a Player considers a penalty to be worse than deregistration, e is
still subject to it unless e actually deregisters or is deregistered.
favor, 847:
Andre, 853:
Deregistration happens at the time when the Player makes the request to 
deregister. This Rule cannot be used to deregister retroatively.
Court of Appeal, 849:
This Rule cannot be used to avoid a Penalty if the Penalty has already been
incurred.

115:
elJefe (upheld in appelate court), 700:
Self-amending and self-repealing Rules are allowed.

116:
Vanyel, 707:
see 206

206:
Oerjan, 117:
A Vote takes place at the moment the it is send to the Assessor, not when it is
counted.
Vanyel, 707:
One is allowed to change one's Vote.
KoJen, 857:
Votes are Platonic Entities. If something is not a legal Vote, it's not a Vote.

208:
Vanyel, 707:
One is not allowed to vote or change one's vote in the period between the end
of the Voting Period and the sending of the Voting results by the Assessor.

217:
Oerjan, 684:
see 789

357:
Blob, 027:
There is no Rule 357, so the phrase "in the sense of Rule 357" is without
meaning.

452:
Kirt A Dankmyer, 036:
This Rule forbids the Assessor to use eir knowledge on the votes to withdraw
or disown the Proposal.
Chuck, 750:
Only if the Assessor electioneers IN AN ATTEMPT to influence the voting does
this Rule apply, not if e happens to be electioneering while having other
intentions.
This includes trying to influence the number of voters, even if not regarding
whether or not the Proposal will pass if the numbers of voters is not
influenced.
(pro-Speaker TAL argues that this is only true if the Assessor tries to
influence Quorum, Justiciar Steve agrees with Chuck)

478:
Vanyel, 707:
Something that is sent to the Public Forum becomes effective at the moment it
is received by the listserver.
Swann, 752:
Something sent to someone in such a way that that person has the obligation
to send it to all Players is sufficient for it having been sent to the
Public Forum. (upheld upon appeal by CotC)
Coco, 813 (upheld in Concurring Opinion):
A Player does not need to prove that e can receive the Public Forum.
Zefram, 831 (upheld in Concurring Opinion):
The Events contained in a message do not necessarily occur at the time of the
Date: header.

494:
elJefe, 834:
If something is described in the Rules as being some Player's choice, and that
Player decides to make the decision random, that Player is the one who has to
randomize the decision.

591:
Chuck, 794 (not in Judgement, but in remark of CotC):
A Judgement may be delivered in the form 'if X then TRUE else FALSE', but only
if it is unambiguous whether X is false or true itself.

594:
Xanadu, 778:
It is allowed for a Proposal to contain zero Rule Changes.

676:
Andre, 833:
No Player who has left the game is a Player.

754:
Vanyel, 712:
The 'substitution of a word of phrase by a synonym or abbreviation' includes
denoting a Player by another name than his official nickname, if it is clear
to all Players who is meant.
elJefe, appeal 744:
This Rule only applies to those differences explicitly named in the Rule.
KoJen, appeal 744:
In the context of Rule Changes, nothing short of exact quoting of the text to
be amended can be construed as unambiguous.
Chuck, 754 (although not as part of the Judgement, but in a remark of the
CotC):
Replacing a phrase by a logical equivalent statement falls under this rule
if the logical equivalence is unambiguous.

766:
Chuck, 816:
There can be more than one Group.

789:
Oerjan, 684:
Such an Injunction is, for the purposes of Rule 217, regarded as part of Game
Custom.
An Injunction is not just to be considered during judging, but also in the
everyday application of the Rule.
Court of Appeal, 825:
A Rule cannot be interpreted in such a way that something is the case if the
Rule would be repealed. A Statement caliming such an interpretation should be
judged FALSE.
Court of Appeal, 860:
This is only applicable if the statement claims that a certain Rule has to
be interpreted a certain way, not if it claims the Rules in general have to
be interpreted a certain way.
The list of Relevant Rules needs not be explicit.

869:
Ian, 805:
'Person' in this Rule refers to a natural person, not to Judicial Persons
(Organization). Furthermore, naming something 'person' does not make it a
person for this Rule.
Andre, 833:
The Player and the person being the Player are identical.
The act of registration does not create the Player, it just causes em to
become a Nomic Entity of the type 'Player'.

951:
Oerjan, 723:
The CotC may make another assignment, for example one to a non-Player, as long
as e makes one according to this Rule as well.

993:
Appelate Court, 762:
If a Directive is not defined by the Rules, it is not a Directive, but is
still part of the Proposal (although non-effective).
  (whether this Judgement still applies after acceptance of Proposal 2399
   is not clear)
Xanadu, 778:
It is allowed for a Rule to contain zero Directives.
KoJen, 781:
Directives cause an action to occur at a specific instant in time only.

1003:
JonRock, 756:
This does include Proposals which create Rules which penalize people on base
of their voting. In this case it's still the Proposal that does the coercing,
although it is the Rule that does the penalizing. (upheld in Appelate Court, 
although his Judgement wasn't) (reversal of Oerjan, 753)
There is no coercion if the penalizing is not dependent on a Player's vote on
the Proposal.
Coercion is still present if the Rule imposing the penalty is not the Rule
created or amended by the Proposal.
Appelate Court, 756:
Not every Proposal which penalizes people based on their voting is coercive,
only if the threat is large enough to be effective.

1011:
elJefe (upheld in appelate Court), 700:
The first paragraph of this Rule does NOT apply to nicknames, as they are
not created by the Rules. It also does not apply to Players, who are not
created by the Rules, and do have an existence outside the context of Agora
Nomic.
Michael, 803:
If 2 Rules try to give the same name to different Entities, the Entities do
not merge, but the second attempt to name fails.
Being known as something is not the same as being named something.
favor, 815:
If an amendment is made to the Rules governing the properties of any Game
Entity, then all such Game Entities stay in existence and have their 
properties changed to conform to the amendment.
Chuck, 816:
If an Entity, being redefined, retains the same name, then the Entity *is*
continuous if a continuity is at all possible.
The actions have to be specified in the Rules, but the specification may be
implicit.
If a new or amended Rule says that A is B, and A existed and was not B before 
the Rule or Amendment was adopted, then that Rule specifies that A becomes B.
Andre, 833:
Players are Game Entities.

1016:
Jeffrey S., 698:
A Player On Hold may not vote, but e may influence the voting Result.
Dave Bowen, 718:
A Player may not be put On Hold, in any other way than described by the Rules,
because of Rule 1011.

1021:
Michael, 769:
Because the Rules only talk about the MI's of Rules, nothing can be said about 
the MI of a Proposal, not even if it exists.

1036:
Deb & Bob, 010:
If a Proposal is submitted to the Promotor, it will remain a Proposal, even
if the Promotor changes before the Proposal is distributed.
Vanyel, 776:
There is no failure of Distribution if the Promotor sends a message to the PF
that e has received no Proposals while in fact e has (unless the Proposals had
been sent in more than one week earlier)

1043:
Coco, 810:
If in one message a Player deregisters as well as doing other things (such as
registering), Rule 1527 applies. (at the time of the Judgement Rule 1527 was
not created yet, but the Judge appealed to a Game Custom with the same
content.)

1047:
Pascal, 745:
Chuck (upheld by Court of Appeal), 747:
A Proposal has passed unanimously if there are no votes AGAINST, even if there
are some ABSTAIN votes.

1054:
Swann, 766:
If the Rule, its old Category and its new Category are not specified, the text
is not a Directive.

1069:
Down with 815!, 738:
If no Amendment Number is added, it must be taken that the newest version of a
Rule is meant.

1079:
Michael, 832:
A Dice-roll server is sufficiently random to fall under the definition of this
Rule.

1339:
Michael, 822:
Any change in the Rules, in a way other than the two possibilities described
in this Rule, is illegal because of Rule 105.

1397:
Dave Bowen, 819:
This Rule does not cause an Organization of undefined Class to cease toexist, 
as the Rules might be changed to make its Class defined, causing its Compact 
to get a Jurisdiction.

1442:
Zefram, 791:
The Extra Votes are used by casting them. Extra Votes are Votes as well as
Currencies.

1454:
Appelate Court, 789:
The Rulekeepor is not disallowed by this Rule to send to the Public Forum a 
message containing a claim that something is the Virus Number while it isn't.

1466:
KoJen, 781:
The working of a Currency Directive is limited to only one moment in time.

1468:
Swann, 802:
If an Entity ceases to exists, its Treasury is destroyed as well

1469:
favor, 842 & 841:
The transfer of Currencies and the destruction of Treasuries are separate
events.
If the Treasury contains a negative amount of any Currency, the Currency is
not transferred, but the Treasury is still destroyed.
This Rule doesn't say anything about Treasury-destruction in general, just 
about Treasury-destruction because of destruction of the Treasury-possessing 
entity. Treasury-destruction in general does not imply or require transfers to
Mintors.

1471:
elJefe, 828:
If the Mintor of a Currency is changed, the Currency ceases to exist.

1472:
Dave B., 793:
The notification to the Recordkeepor may be as part of an Official Report sent
to the Public Forum.
Court of Appeal, 851:
The notification is not part of the Transfer itself. If there is no
notification, or the notification is given too late, this does not stop the
Transfer from taking place.
KoJen, 855:
It is not possible to transfer a complex number of Currency.

1482:
Court of Appeal, 858:
A Rule can clarify the meaning of a word in a Rule with higher precedence,
or give a more precise definition. This is not a conflict in the sence meant
in this Rule. However, if the redefinition completely changes the meaning of
the words, this might still be disallowed under this Rule.

1483:
Vlad, 717:
Comments are not part of the text of a Proposal.
Andre, pro-Speaker 762:
Anything which is contained in a Proposal is part of a Proposal, unless the
Rules or Game Custom specifically say otherwise.

1493:
Zefram, 809:
A Transfer as described in this Rule may not cause someone's number of Win
Tokens negative.

1497:
elJefe, 827:
If it is not made sufficiently clear that certain information is NOT 
'presented as correct', it is such. This is the case if several Players
believe it to be presented as correct.
Attempting an illegal Move can, if the Player reports the Move, and knows
it to be illegal, be a violation of this Rule.

1529:
Zefram, 830:
This Rule does not define those parts of a Compact that legally bind Players
to be Statutes, but those parts of a Compact that are Statutes to legally bind
Players.

1530:
KoJen, 818 (upheld upon appeal):
If the Rules on a certain Class of Organization say nothing about which Players
can be under the Jurisdiction of its Compact, it cannot have any Players
under its Jurisdiction. Rule 116 may not be applied to imply that the
Jurisdiction can be any group of Players.
Oerjan, 836:
A Compact can never force Players outside of its Jurisdiction to come into
its Jurisdiction.
favor, 838:
Specification of a procedure to come under the Jurisdiction of a Compact (as
Rule 1539 does in the case of Contests) contains an implicite permission to
Players to use this procedure to come under the Jurisdiction, in the absence
of other permission-withholding language elsewhere in the Rules.

1590:
Doug, 860:
For specifying a certain Player to fulfill the duties in this Rule, it
suffices to appoint a certain Officer to do such.