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CFJ 1080 

  "If the rules require that a player has to perform an action at a 
   particular time, or during a particular time period, and e fails to 
   do so, then e is not required to perform the action at a later time." 

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Judge:       Morendil
Judgement:   FALSE

Eligible:    Chuck, Crito, elJefe, General Chaos, Harlequin, Jester,
             Kolja A., Michael, Morendil, Murphy, Oerjan, Sherlock, Steve,
             Swann, Time Agent

Ineligible: 
Caller:      Blob Barred: On request: On hold:     Andre

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History:

  Called by Blob, 20 Jan 1998 14:01:45 +1100 
  Assigned to Morendil, 21 Jan 1998 12:59:58 +0000 
  Judged FALSE, 28 Jan 1998 09:53:27 +0100 

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Caller's Arguments:

The rules are unclear on this. Some Officers have taken it upon themselves to
play catch-up when they missed a report, but the rules do not necessarily
require this. (In some cases they might not even permit it, especially if it
involves making Payment Orders and the like.)

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Judge's Arguments: 

This is a broad (some might say overbroad) statement about the Rules. As such it
should be Judged TRUE if it is true in all instances to which it can possibly
apply, and FALSE if there are some instances in which it doesn't.

As a general observation, I would like to note that my understanding of the term
"requirement" implies that, short of the Rules explicitly absolving a Player of
a given requirement, as do Rules 1584 (Absolvement of Duty for On Hold Players)
and 1585 (Official Duties upon Officer Change), the only way that a
Rule-mandated requirement can cease to apply is for the action required to be
performed, or the Rule or Rules involved to be amended such that they no longer
require that particular action.

The Caller's argument, however, involves a specific kind of requirement - or
rather two specific classes of requirements, and I must also add that it would
have been more appropriate to address a similar Statement for each such class :
requirements to perform an action at a specific time, and requirements to
perform an action within a particular period of time.

Two 'archetypal' examples will suffice to illustrate each of the classes covered
by the Statement and rephrase the problem it raises:

* If a Rule requires a Player to perform an action at the beginning 
   of the Nomic Week, and that Player fails to do so, does the 
   requirement on that Player to perform that action remain ? 

* If a Rule requires a Player to perform an action as soon as
   possible (which implies 'within 7 days'), and that Player fails to
   do so, does the requirement on that Player to perform that action
   remain ?

Game Custom strongly suggests that in some instances - in fact quite a few - the
answer to the above questions is "yes"; witness delayed Lotteries or
Frankenstein Monster selections of months past.

In both cases, I think that it is sufficient, to find the Statement FALSE, to
note that it would imply that, in a large number of cases, failure to perform an
action required of a Player absolves that Player of said requirement. This does
not square with the expected meaning of "requirement", and I find nothing in the
Rules that would support such a drastic redefinition of the term.

The issue of the mechanism whereby a Rule which imposes a requirement to perform
an action and places additional strictures, such as a specific time or period of
time when that action must be performed, or a frequency with which the action
must be performed, has been raised, partly as an objection to the above appeal
to the natural meaning of a "requirement".

In particular, it has been observed that once the time or period of time
specified by a Rule for a required action is past, it becomes obviously
impossible to fully comply with such a requirement - the implication being that
such a requirement cannot be fulfilled, leaving us with only two alternatives
neither of which is palatable : that such requirements, if not fulfilled at or
within the specified time,  cannot be fulfilled at all and remain imposed for
all time; or that such requirements are no longer imposed after the specified
time or period of time is past.

However, enough likely alternatives have been presented in discussion; notably,
that such a provision might in fact impose multiple requirements - for instance,
one to perform the action, the other to perform it at or within the specified
time.

The hypothesis of this or a similar mechanism is borne out by both the Rules and
Game Custom. An almost ideal example is actions required "as soon as possible";
of these, Rule 1023 explicitly states that

      This Rule does not deprive actions which do not conform to its 
      requirements of whatever effects they would otherwise have. 

Thus, in the case of ASAP actions, failure to perform within the time period
specified does not otherwise alter the significance of performing such an action
at a later time. I contend that this should in particular be taken to mean that
the requirement to perform the action itself remains after the ASAP-imposed
period is past.

As an additional example, Rule 1007 states : "At the beginning of each Nomic
Week, the Registrar shall pay out to each Officer the designated Salary for each
Office that Officer has held without interruption for the entire five days
preceding."

Such a requirement is arguably impossible to fulfill, given our definition of
"the beginning of the Nomic Week" as a moment with no duration. On the other
hand, Game Custom strongly suggests that such actions do remain required even
after the beginning of the Nomic Week.

I do not believe there is a need at this time to decide in favor of the
'multiple requirements' hypothesis over other, potential hypotheses which might
do as well, or better, in resolving the issue; that at least one such hypothesis
exists is, again, enough in my opinion to find the Statement FALSE.

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