From - Fri Feb 2 20:46:56 2001 Status: U Return-Path: Received: from gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au ([131.170.42.16]) by walker.mail.mindspring.net (Mindspring Mail Service) with ESMTP id t7k70m.35v.37kbi73 for ; Thu, 1 Feb 2001 21:31:49 -0500 (EST) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA21018 for agora-official-list; Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:03:46 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 CAA21011 for ; Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:03:42 GMT Received: (from mail@localhost) by fw.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.9.3/8.9.1) id NAA16141 for ; Fri, 2 Feb 2001 13:05:57 +1100 (EST) Received: from rfx-64-6-196-132.users.reflexcom.com(64.6.196.132) by fw.serc.rmit.edu.au via smap (V2.1) id xma016136; Fri, 2 Feb 01 13:05:41 +1100 Received: (from wesc@localhost) by fozzie.antitribu.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id SAA05343 for agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au; Thu, 1 Feb 2001 18:36:29 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wesc) From: Wes Contreras Message-Id: <200102020236.SAA05343@fozzie.antitribu.com> Subject: OFF: CFJ 1254 Judged FALSE To: agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (agora-off) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 18:36:29 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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: t7k70m.35v.37kbi73 ============================== CFJ 1254 ============================== Peekee possesses at least one Voting Token. ======================================================================== Called by: Murphy Judge: pTang Judgement: TRUE Justices: Chuck (S), Steve (J), Wes (C) Appeals Decision: OVERTURN, no consensus Judge: Ziggy Judgement: FALSE Judge selection: Eligible: David, Elysion, Kelly, lee, Murphy, pTang, Steve Not eligible: Caller: Murphy Barred: - Had eir turn: Blob, Chuck, Crito, David, Peekee, t, Wes Already served: - Defaulted: - Previously Defaulted: Harlequin, Sherlock By request: harvel, Michael, Palnatoke, Taral On Hold: Blob, Michael, Oerjan Zombie: Anthony, Harlequin, Novalis, Schneidster ======================================================================== History: Called by Murphy: ?? Assigned to David: 06 Jan 2001 19:22:17 -0800 David defaulted: 14 Jan 2001 23:50:38 -0800 Assigned to pTang: 14 Jan 2001 23:50:38 -0800 Judged TRUE by pTang: 15 Jan 2001 03:14:38 -0800 Judgement Distributed: 15 Jan 2001 22:41:59 -0800 harvel calls for Appeal: 15 Jan 2001 11:37:30 -0500 Blob calls for Appeal: 16 Jan 2001 12:58:54 +1100 Oerjan calls for Appeal: 17 Jan 2001 19:33:07 +0100 Appeal distributed: 17 Jan 2001 21:56:57 -0800 Steve OVERTURNS to FALSE: 19 Jan 2001 15:39:51 +1100 Wes OVERTURNS and reassigns: 21 Jan 2001 11:39:49 -0800 Chuck OVERTURNS and dismisses: 24 Jan 2001 08:45:50 -0600 Appeal decision distributed: 24 Jan 2001 19:11:02 -0800 Assigned to Ziggy: 24 Jan 2001 19:11:02 -0800 Judged FALSE by Ziggy: 31 Jan 2001 22:10:06 -0500 Judgement Distributed: As of this message ======================================================================== Caller's Arguments: ======================================================================== Caller's Evidence: EXHIBIT A: Murphy attempts to provide a VT to Peekee on 20 Nov 2000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I hereby create a Voting Token and transfer it to Peekee. ======================================================================== Judge's Arguments: At the time of Murphy's statement, the creation, transfer, and ownership of "Voting Tokens" was neither prohibited nor regulated by the Rules. By Rule 101, it is therefore permitted and unregulated. ======================================================================== Judge's Evidence: ======================================================================== Justice Steve's Arguments: What is a "Voting Token"? There are four possibilities. 1. Voting Tokens as Bank Currency Prior to the adoption of P4085 on 16 November, 2000, a Voting Token was a unit of Bank Currency defined by the Rules of Agora. If that's the kind of thing referred to in the Statement, it's clearly FALSE. The adoption of R4085 caused all Voting Tokens to cease to exist, in accordance with R1586, so Peekee didn't have any Voting Tokens of that kind when this CFJ was called. 2. Voting Tokens as Player-minted Currency A second possibility is that a Voting Token might be a unit of Currency minted by a Player, using the ability that each Player has to Mint Currencies, as provided by Rules 1579 and 1722. Prior to the adoption of P4085, no Player could have minted a Currency called "Voting Tokens", because a Currency with that name was already in existence, and this is prohibited by R1586. But since P4085 was adopted and Voting Tokens were destroyed, the name is once again available for use. Could Murphy's post have succeeded all at once in creating a new Currency called "Voting Tokens", minting a unit of the new Currency and transferring that unit of Currency to Peekee? No, it could not. R1722 states that: A new Currency is created when an entity which has Mint Authority posts to the Public Forum a message stating that e is doing so, provided that also e states in that message the values of all properties which the Rules require of Currencies. R1722 does not say exactly which properties these are, but it's reasonable to conclude that they must include at least the properties listed in R1892: the name of the Currency, its Mintor, Recordkeepor and MUQ. Murphy's post did not specify a Recordkeepor or MUQ for Voting Tokens, and so his post could not have succeeded in creating a new Currency of that name. It follows that Murphy could not mint any units of this Currency, nor transfer any units to Peekee. 3. Voting Tokens as non-Currency Property A third possibility, apparently the one intended by Murphy, is that a Voting Token might be an individual instance of non-Currency Property. But this possibility is ruled out by the first paragraph of R1942, which states that: Any entity which the Rules permit to be possessed by another entity is a Property. An entity is not a Property unless the Rules specifically allow for it to be possessed by another entity... Properties may not be created or destroyed, or their ownership changed, except in accordance with the Rules. The net effect of the second and third sentences seems to be that Property can only be created by following procedures specifically set out in the Rules. The only procedures in existence for creation of Property by Players are those discussed above for creating Currency. So Murphy's post could not have succeeded in creating an instance of non-Currency Property. 4. Voting Tokens as entities extraneous to the Rules A final possibility is that a Voting Token is an entity of a kind whose existence and properties are independent of the Rules and extraneous to them, for example a painting or a sonata. Judge pTang appears to have interpreted the Statement in this way. E notes that the creation, destruction and transfer of such entities is unregulated by the Rules, and is thus permitted by R101. This is true enough as far as it goes, but it is not enough to demonstrate the truth of the Statement. R101 certainly permits Murphy to create whatever entities extraneous to the Rules e likes. The creation of paintings and the composition of sonatas is wholly unregulated by the Rules and permitted by them. But such acts of creation cannot be accomplished by posting messages to the Public Forum. In fact, it's hard to see what kind of entity extraneous to the Rules could be created by posting messages to the Public Forum. It's true that the Rules create a legal fiction to the effect that certain posts to the Public Forum do have the effect of creating entities. But this is a special case; these are entities whose existence and properties are wholly defined by the Rules, and are not extraneous to them. They are dealt with in (2) and (3) above. If we are to understand a Voting Token to be an entity of kind extraneous to the Rules, then we have no reason to think that one can create them by posting messages to the Public Forum. Hence in this case, too, the Statement is FALSE. ======================================================================== Justice Wes' Arguments: It seems quite evident to us that VT's, at the time that Murphy claims to have created and transfered one, were extraneous to the Rules, for the most part. Justice Steve, as well as others in various discussions, delve into the philosophy of imaginary entities to claim that the creation of a figment of our imagination is patently impossible. We disagree. It is quite easy for us to mentally create an idea, then to assign ownership of that idea to whomever we wish. A very simple intellectual exercise. Does this practice have legal merit? Only insomuch as the Rules decide that it does. We would certainly oppose a Rule which granted legal status to this sort of mental gymnastics without strict guidelines to implement verifiability, such as the current Currency Rules. This does not mean that it is impossible to grant legal status to figments of our imagination which are not properly regulated, only that it is inadvisable. On the other hand, verifiability is quite a difficult subject. Even though Murphy announced publicly that e was creating a figment of eir imagination which e referred to as a VT, and even assigning its ownership to someone, there is no way to see what had happened to it since then. It may have been transfered again by Peekee's inadvertant thought. It may have decayed due to mental neglect (can it?). It may have been quietly stolen by another Player, or even a small cat. We therefore move to OVERTURN Judgement and reassign to another Judge. We further strongly recommend that the new Judge DISMISS this CFJ on the grounds that its truthfulness cannot be accurately determined given the information available (or any amount of information for that matter). ======================================================================== Justice Chuck's Arguments: I agree with Wes' and Steve's analysis that, at the time this CFJ was called, Voting Tokens (if they existed at all) were extraneous to the Rules. (Wes states they "were extraneous to the Rules, for the most part," but does not detail in what way, if any, they were *not* extraneous to the Rules. However, I am surprised that my fellow justices seem to have overlooked one of the provisions of rule 1565: A Judge must dismiss a CFJ if one of the following is true of it: [...] iii) Its Statement does not relate to a matter relevant to the Rules. [...] This seems to clearly be the case with this CFJ. Given that Voting Tokens (if they exist) are extraneous to the Rules, I can find no relevance to the Rules in this CFJ. The CFJ clearly should have been dismissed under this provision. Therefore, my appeals decision is that the original judgement was incorrect, and the CFJ should be dismissed. ======================================================================== Judge Ziggy's Arguments: I concur with the Justices and what appears to be general consensus that, at the time of CFJ 1254, Voting Tokens were not Property. Rule 1942 states that Every Property shall have a Recordkeepor, which is some Player who is required to retain a record of who owns that Property. If, for a given Property, no other Rule provides otherwise, or if the Rules would otherwise provide for a person who is not a Player, the Treasuror shall maintain this record. As no Player has been Recordkeepor for the alleged Voting Token that Peekee allegedly possesses, it is not Property. Because Rule 1942 states that "any entity which the Rules permit to be possessed by another entity is a Property", the rules thus do not permit this alleged Voting Token to be possessed. Does this mean (a) that the possession of a Voting Token is entirely unregulated and irrelevant to the Rules, or that (b) the rules forbid the possession of Voting Tokens? An analysis of the Rules shows that, out of 31 instances of a form of the word "possess" in them, all but one refer to the possession of property. (The exception is in the first line of Rule 1638.) Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that within the context of Agora, "possess" is a 'jargon' term with a specific meaning, and in fact it perhaps should be written "Possess" for clarity. It is implicitly defined as an action that can only be done on Property, and game custom doesn't seem to go against that. The use of the word "possess" in the Statement of this CFJ should thus be interpreted as if the Statement was worded "Peekee Possesses at least one Voting Token". Clearly, Peekee does not "Possess" this VT: that is, this VT is not eir possession under the context of "possess" used in the Rules. Admittedly, Rule 1942 does say (emphasis mine): **With respect to Property**, the terms "possessor" and "owner" are synonymous, as are "possess" and "own". One could argue that this only defines "possess" for Property. I read this, however, as stating that "own" and "possess" are being defined as synonymous for Property, not that "possess" is only being defined for Property. In my reading, the Rules portray "possession" as a property that only Property can possess, and this alleged Voting Token is not Property; thus, I declare this Statement to be FALSE. ========================================================================