From - Mon May 22 18:28:56 2000 Return-Path: Received: from gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au ([131.170.42.16]) by day.mail.mindspring.net (Mindspring Mail Service) with ESMTP id sijbh9.h9s.37kbi66 for ; Mon, 22 May 2000 18:01:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA26196 for agora-official-list; Mon, 22 May 2000 21:39:16 GMT Received: from fw.serc.rmit.edu.au (fw-in.serc.rmit.edu.au [131.170.42.1]) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA26193 for ; Mon, 22 May 2000 21:39:14 GMT Received: (from mail@localhost) by fw.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.9.3/8.9.1) id HAA73014 for ; Tue, 23 May 2000 07:45:55 +1000 (EST) Received: from msuacad.morehead-st.edu(147.133.1.1) by fw.serc.rmit.edu.au via smap (V2.1) id xma073012; Tue, 23 May 00 07:45:40 +1000 Received: (from mpslon01@localhost) by msuacad.morehead-st.edu (8.7.1/8.7.1) id RAA23577 for agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au; Mon, 22 May 2000 17:43:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Slone Message-Id: <200005222143.RAA23577@msuacad.morehead-st.edu> Subject: OFF: CFJ 1217 DISMISSED To: agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (agora-official) Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 17:43:37 EDT X-Mailer: Elm [revision: 212.4] Sender: owner-agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au Precedence: bulk Reply-To: agora-discussion@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 X-UIDL: sijbh9.h9s.37kbi66 ============================== CFJ 1217 ============================== TYHJÄ is not an obvious synonym of one of FOR, AGAINST or ABSTAIN, as specified in Rule 683, and therefore is not a vote upon a Proposal. ======================================================================== Called by: t Judge: Kelly Judgement: DISMISS Judge selection: Eligible: Chuck, Crito, Kelly, Peekee, Sherlock, Steve, Wes, else...if, harvel Not eligible: Caller: t Barred: - Had eir turn: Elysion, Murphy, Palnatoke, Taral, lee, t Already served: - Defaulted: Harlequin By request: Blob, Michael On Hold: - Zombie: Anthony, Harlequin, Novalis, Schneidster ======================================================================== History: Called by t 18 May 2000 17:34:55 +0300 Assigned to Kelly: 18 May 2000 12:27:02 -0400 Dismissed by Kelly: 22 May 2000 00:11:12 -0500 Judgement published: As of this message ======================================================================== Caller's Arguments: ======================================================================== Caller's Evidence: ======================================================================== Judge Kelly's Arguments: This Court interprets the second paragraph of Rule 683 to mean that votes upon Proposals are divided into three categories, that those three categories can be known by the exemplars FOR, AGAINST, and ABSTAIN, and that the use of those specific exemplars is not mandated and that any other form of language which will successfully inform the Assessor as to which of the three categories a given Vote should be assigned. One condition which must be met for vote to be successfully cast is for the Voter to inform the Assessor of the vote. It seems clear that the message "I hereby cast one vote FOR Proposal 9999" informs the Assessor of the Voter's desire to cast a single Vote of FOR on Proposal 9999; no reasonable Assessor could conclude otherwise. This Court therefore holds that the statement of this CFJ amounts to asking whether the message "I hereby cast one vote TYHJÄ Proposal 9999" informs the Assessor of the Voter's desire to cast a single Vote on Proposal 9999 (that vote being one of FOR, AGAINST, or ABSTAIN). This Court has no idea what "TYHJÄ" means, or even what language it's from. Indeed, it might very well be a random string of characters with no meaning in any known language. This Court's understanding, however, it not the issue. Rule 683 clearly places the question in the hands of the Assessor: a message conveys a Vote only if the message informs the Assessor. Whether the message of the form quoted above succeeds in informing the Assessor depends on whether the Assessor has knowledge of the meaning of the word, "TYHJÄ". Therefore, the statement of this CFJ may be either TRUE or FALSE depending on the Assessor's knowledge. Since the Assessor changes from time to time, the knowledge of the Assessor will also change, and thus to conclusively Judge this statement would require this Court have access to future knowledge about the knowledge of all future Assessors. This is clearly impossible, and thus this CFJ must be dismissed for lack of information necessary to make a determinative ruling. Rule 683 does require that when a synonym is used, that it be "obvious", but does not state to whom it must be obvious. It is possible that a reasonable Assessor could consider "TYHJÄ" an obvious synonym for FOR, AGAINST, or ABSTAIN; this Court lacks knowledge to decide this question; and, again, future knowledge would be required to judge. The CFJ is, therefore, DISMISSED. ======================================================================== Judge Kelly's Evidence: ======================================================================== Clerk of the Courts harvel -- Michael Slone This is an ordinary paragraph made different by content. -- Gertrude Stein From - Sun Jun 4 14:41:17 2000 Return-Path: Received: from gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au ([131.170.42.16]) by fb04.eng00.mindspring.net (Mindspring Mail Service) with ESMTP id sjg9ue.hsk.37kbi5a for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2000 17:31:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA14011 for agora-official-list; Fri, 2 Jun 2000 21:22:22 GMT Received: from fw.serc.rmit.edu.au (fw-in.serc.rmit.edu.au [131.170.42.1]) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA14008 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2000 21:22:20 GMT Received: (from mail@localhost) by fw.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.9.3/8.9.1) id HAA14479 for ; Sat, 3 Jun 2000 07:31:02 +1000 (EST) Received: from msuacad.morehead-st.edu(147.133.1.1) by fw.serc.rmit.edu.au via smap (V2.1) id xma014476; Sat, 3 Jun 00 07:30:33 +1000 Received: (from mpslon01@localhost) by msuacad.morehead-st.edu (8.10.1/8.10.1) id e52LRqY01926 for agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au; Fri, 2 Jun 2000 17:27:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Slone Message-Id: <200006022127.e52LRqY01926@msuacad.morehead-st.edu> Subject: OFF: Appeal of CFJ 1219 assigned to Sherlock (S), Crito (J), Peekee (C) To: agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (agora-official) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 17:27:51 EDT X-Mailer: Elm [revision: 212.4] Sender: owner-agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au Precedence: bulk Reply-To: agora-discussion@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 X-UIDL: sjg9ue.hsk.37kbi5a ============================== CFJ 1219 ============================== CFJ 1217 was not Dismissed. ======================================================================== Called by: Wes Judge: Steve Judgement: FALSE Justices: Sherlock (S), Crito (J), Peekee (C) Judge selection: Eligible: Chuck, Crito, Elysion, Kelly, Peekee, Sherlock, Steve, Taral, harvel, lee, t [Clerk's note: most of these were not eligible at the time the CFJ was originally assigned.] Not eligible: Caller: Wes Barred: - Had eir turn: Murphy, Palnatoke Already served: - Defaulted: Harlequin By request: Blob, Michael On Hold: - Zombie: Anthony, Harlequin, Novalis, Schneidster ======================================================================== History: Called by Wes 22 May 2000 00:08:51 -0700 Assigned to Steve: 22 May 2000 17:58:55 -0400 Judged FALSE by Steve: 23 May 2000 11:20:25 +1000 Judgement published: 23 May 2000 09:31:41 -0400 Appealed by Wes: 23 May 2000 23:26:46 -0700 Appealed by lee: 24 May 2000 12:04:17 -0500 Appealed by Murphy: 02 Jun 2000 03:05:09 -0700 Appeal assigned: As of this message ======================================================================== Caller's Arguments: Kelly Dismissed CFJ 1217 claiming that e would be required to have knowledge of future Assessors in order to evaluate the Statement as true or false. Rule 451, however, states quite clearly that the truth or falsity of the Statement at the time the CFJ was issued. Thus, e is only required to have knowledge of the Assessor at the time of the CFJ. Since the information in question was indeed available with a reasonable effort (merely asking the current Assessor), the Dismissal was not permissible by Rule 1565 and thus did not occur. ======================================================================== Caller's Evidence: > ============================== CFJ 1217 ============================== > > TYHJÄ is not an obvious synonym of one of FOR, AGAINST or > ABSTAIN, as specified in Rule 683, and therefore is not a vote > upon a Proposal. > > ======================================================================== > > This Court interprets the second paragraph of Rule 683 to mean that > votes upon Proposals are divided into three categories, that those > three categories can be known by the exemplars FOR, AGAINST, and > ABSTAIN, and that the use of those specific exemplars is not mandated > and that any other form of language which will successfully inform the > Assessor as to which of the three categories a given Vote should be > assigned. > > One condition which must be met for vote to be successfully cast is > for the Voter to inform the Assessor of the vote. It seems clear that > the message "I hereby cast one vote FOR Proposal 9999" informs the > Assessor of the Voter's desire to cast a single Vote of FOR on > Proposal 9999; no reasonable Assessor could conclude otherwise. This > Court therefore holds that the statement of this CFJ amounts to asking > whether the message "I hereby cast one vote TYHJÄ Proposal 9999" > informs the Assessor of the Voter's desire to cast a single Vote on > Proposal 9999 (that vote being one of FOR, AGAINST, or ABSTAIN). > > This Court has no idea what "TYHJÄ" means, or even what language it's > from. Indeed, it might very well be a random string of characters > with no meaning in any known language. This Court's understanding, > however, it not the issue. Rule 683 clearly places the question in > the hands of the Assessor: a message conveys a Vote only if the > message informs the Assessor. Whether the message of the form quoted > above succeeds in informing the Assessor depends on whether the > Assessor has knowledge of the meaning of the word, "TYHJÄ". > Therefore, the statement of this CFJ may be either TRUE or FALSE > depending on the Assessor's knowledge. Since the Assessor changes > from time to time, the knowledge of the Assessor will also change, and > thus to conclusively Judge this statement would require this Court > have access to future knowledge about the knowledge of all future > Assessors. This is clearly impossible, and thus this CFJ must be > dismissed for lack of information necessary to make a determinative > ruling. > > Rule 683 does require that when a synonym is used, that it be > "obvious", but does not state to whom it must be obvious. It is > possible that a reasonable Assessor could consider "TYHJÄ" an obvious > synonym for FOR, AGAINST, or ABSTAIN; this Court lacks knowledge to > decide this question; and, again, future knowledge would be required > to judge. > > The CFJ is, therefore, DISMISSED. > Rule 451/3 (Power=1) Determination of Judgement--Timing When a Judge is considering eir Judgement of a Statement contained in a CFJ, e shall make eir evaluation based on the truth or falsity of the Statement at the time the CFJ was issued. ======================================================================== Judge Steve's Arguments: The Statement is FALSE. CFJ 1217 was dismissed. The Argument brought by the Caller is, in my view, immaterial. It may well be that Judge Kelly was mistaken in dismissing CFJ 1217. That is, or ought to be, a matter for a Board of Appeal to consider. It may also be, as Wes has argued in agora-discussion, that the Appeal mechanism is broken where Dismissals are concerned. If so, a legislative remedy should be drafted. The broader question raised by the CFJ is that of the import of the provision in R217 that "Judgements must be in accordance with the Rules".(*) Does this mean that a purported Judgement which is not in accordance with the Rules is not in fact a Judgement? It is my ruling that such a view is a mistake. It is in accordance with neither game custom, commonsense, nor the best interests of the game. Consider game custom first. We have dozens if not hundreds of examples of Judgements which have been overturned on Appeal. The Boards of Appeal in many of these cases presumably felt that the original Judgement was mistaken. In no case has it been alleged that the Judgement which was overturned was therefore not a Judgement. Such a treatment of mistaken Judgements is in the best interests of the game. Judges are human and capable of error, which is why Judicial decisions are subject to review. But if, where a mistake is discovered, the conclusion is drawn that no Judgement was originally delivered, confusing and dismaying consequences follow: the original Judge would be guilty of Failure to Judge, a new judge would have to be assigned regardless of the decision of the Board of Appeals, and so on. This defies commonsense and does not serve the best interests of the game. The provision in Rule 217 that Judgements must be in accordance with the Rules should be read as a standard to which Judgements should be held by higher Courts. It is not a technical requirement on delivering Judgement, like the requirement to deliver one's Judgement to the CotC within a certain period of time. There is no question that Judge Kelly met all the technical requirements in dismissing CFJ 1217. In my view that is sufficient to show that eir Dismissal is a Dismissal, correct or not. I therefore Judge the Statement to be FALSE. (*) Wes' argument that the Appeals mechanism is broken with respect to Dismissals seems to rely on a premise that the Rules clearly distinguish between Judgements (TRUE or FALSE) and Dismissals. If that premise is granted, then it could be argued that R217 is not relevant here, since it says only that *Judgements* must be in accordance with the Rules. That's true as far it goes. But the point I'm trying to make here is the broader one that officials who are empowered to make determinations can err in the course of reaching such a determination without necessarily threatening the legal status of their determinations as such. Since presumably dismissals must also be in accordance with the Rules, the same argument applies. ======================================================================== Justice Sherlock's Arguments: ======================================================================== Justice Crito's Arguments: ======================================================================== Justice Peekee's Arguments: ======================================================================== Judge Steve's Evidence: ======================================================================== Judge Steve's Comments: Note on Annotation: Regrettably, R789 does not permit me to issue an Order to Annotate R217. Nevertheless, I politely request of the Rulekeepor that e annotate R217 unofficially as follows: [CFJ 1219: A mistaken Judgement (ie one that does not accord with the Rules) is still a Judgement, as long as the technical requirements on the delivery of the Judgement have been met.] ======================================================================== Justice Sherlock's Evidence: ======================================================================== Justice Crito's Evidence: ======================================================================== Justice Peekee's Evidence: ======================================================================== Clerk of the Courts harvel -- Michael Slone