====================================================================== CFJ 922 "A transfer of P-Notes attempting to pay the Petition Fee for a Proposal occurs as a result of a Player's sending the Promotor a message such as described in Rule 1702 and is a transfer mandated by the Rules rather than a transfer mandated by a Player." ====================================================================== Judge: favor Justices: Michael (C), Steve (S), Blob (J) Orgnl Jdgmt: TRUE Judgement: FALSE Eligible: Andre, (Antimatter), Blob, Chuck, Crito, (Elde), elJefe, favor, General Chaos, Harlequin, KoJen, Michael, Murphy, Steve, Swann, Zefram Not eligible: Caller: Morendil Barred: - Disqualified: Vanyel, Antimatter, Elde On hold: Oerjan ====================================================================== History: Called by Morendil, Thu, 8 May 1997 01:40:32 +0100 Assigned to Antimatter, Mon, 19 May 1997 09:04:41 +0100 Antimatter makes himself ineligible, Mon, 19 May 1997 15:14:59 -0800 Assigned to favor, Tue, 20 May 1997 09:14:39 +0100 Judged TRUE, Tue, 20 May 97 10:04:23 -0400 Published, Thu, 22 May 1997 09:00:26 +0100 Appealed by General Chaos, Wed, 21 May 1997 13:57:04 -0500 Appealed by Crito, Thu, 22 May 1997 10:27:17 -0400 Appealed by elJefe, Fri, 23 May 1997 20:28:41 +0000 Elde selected as Justiciar's replacement on appeal Appeals process begun, Wed, 28 May 1997 11:01:39 +0100 Steve REVERSES judgement, Tue, 3 Jun 1997 23:38:04 +1000 (EST) Michael REVERSES judgement, Wed, 4 Jun 1997 10:26:55 +0100 Elde defaults Blob selected as new Justice, Mon, 9 Jun 1997 10:01:57 +0100 Blob REVERSES judgement, Fri, 13 Jun 1997 11:33:16 +1000 (EST) Published, Fri, 20 Jun 1997 14:38:18 +0100 ====================================================================== Appeals decisions Speaker: In the matter of the Appeal of CFJ 922, my ruling is to OVERTURN the Judgement, and find the Statement FALSE. Having read the relevant Rules, and Favor's Judgement, I can see both sides of the argument. There is a sense in which Rule 1702 does *not* require a Player to transfer the Petition Fee on a Proposal: this is sense in which e is not *obligated* to do so. Another Player may pay the Fee, or the Proposal may become Disinterested. And there is a sense in which Rule 1702 *does* require a Player to pay the Petition Fee: if the Player wants the Proposal to be Interested, an no-one else is going to pay the Fee for em, then transferring the requisite P-notes is what Rule 1702 requires em to do. Both of these different usages are quire natural, which makes things quite confusing. Like Favor, I see the need for legislation to clear up this question of which transfers are required by the Rules and which required by Players. Maybe with Scott's 'Pragmatic Currencies' this is what we are getting. Why then overturn Favor's Judgement? It seems to me that the truth of the Statement implies a false dichotomy: that *either* the transfer must be required ('mandated' in the words of the CFJ, but I take that to be a synomym of 'required') by R1702, *or* it must be required by the Player making it. If 'require' had but one natural meaning, such a dichotomy would be fairly safe. But in this case it seems to me that *both* disjuncts are true, although in different senses of 'require'. The transfer of P-notes *is* required by Rule 1702 in the sense that you can't submit an Interested Proposal without somehow getting the Fee paid. But it is also required by the Player in the sense that no transfer will take place without the Player's having taken some action. Compare, for example, the tax on non-voters, which I take to be uncontroversially required - and required only - by Rule 1699. This tax is assessed without any Player having to take any action. Rule 1702 is not like Rule 1699. It seems to require a Player to require a transfer. Given that this possibility exists and can be correctly described in this way, the Statement must be FALSE. Speaker Steve ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Clerk of the Courts: I OVERTURN the Judgement, and find the Statement FALSE. As Justice Steve in his judgement says, there is a false dichotomy in the statement. It wants it to be the case that the transfer be required by the rules, and not by a Player. But this is not the case. The case for claiming that the rules do require the transfer is weak (the requirement is one conditional on the Player wanting to have their Proposal not be Disinterested, and so seems rather a weak requirement). The case for claiming that it is not a transfer mandated by a Player is non-existent. The Player must cause the transfer to come about by posting the relevant message, and is legally allowed not to do so. Thus the choice to send the message represents a Player's mandate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pro-Justiciar (Blob): I do not have time to judge this properly, and I would decline selection, if it wasn't the case that the judgement has already been unnecessarily delayed, and the final decision will be to overturn, regardless of how I judge. So, to save this from going around again, I hereby call for the original judgement to be OVERTURNED. ====================================================================== Judgement: TRUE Reasons and arguments: The Rules, unfortunately, do not provide terribly clear criteria for deciding whether or not a given Transfer is one required by a Player (for the purposes of, say, Rule 1598). In fact, the terminology is quite muddy in this area, drawing no distinction between "requiring" a transfer, causing a transfer, and simply transferring. This is unfortunate, if sometimes fun. In an attempt to apply common sense to the relevant Rules here, we can ask what entity is most convincingly the thing that *requires* the transfer of a P-Note in order to pay a Petition Fee. That is, why is that transfer required (in the ordinary sense of "require")? It is required, clearly, because Rule 1702 says that you've gotta do it. Even more convincingly, Rule 1702 says that it takes precedence over "any Rule that would require a lower fee, no fee...", which suggests very strongly that Rule 1702 considers itself to be requiring the fee that it specifies. The wordings cited by the Caller here are also relevant on that side of the issue. And, applying common sense again, the P-Note transfer doesn't have the voluntary flavor of the Transfers that Rule 1598 most naturally governs, as when a Player gives away some of eir stuff completely on eir own hook, rather than because a Rule told em to. Things are not entirely straightforward, though. The requiring is not absolute; if the Transfer of a P-Note is *not* made, the Player has not violated Rule 1702, e as instead caused eir Proposal to be Disinterested. It is therefore a conditional requiring: you've gotta do it unless you want your Proposal to be Disinterested. And, for that matter, *you* don't gotta do it; someone else can do it fer ya. Still, the word "require" sneaks in quite naturally here, and given that it's actually used by 1702 itself, it would be hard to deny that 1702 does require the transfer, and since 1702 is a Rule, the transfer is required by the Rules. A Player who pays the Petition Fee is most naturally understood to be, not *requiring* the transfer in the sense of Rule 1598, but merely causing it, by the message sent to the Promotor. Which is not to say that legislation to clarify 1702 and 1598 is not called for, or that the Rules in general would not benefit from an overall cleaning up of ambiguous constructions like require/specify/cause/transfer/mandate, which mean different things but tend to be used as if they did not. ====================================================================== (Caller's) Arguments: In 1702, the sentence "The Player transferring these P-Notes must have at least as many P-Notes as e is attempting to transfer, or no transfer of P-Notes is made, nor is the fee paid" is entirely redundant when describing a Player-mandated transfer, and is more appropriate for a Rule-mandated transfer. Further muddying the waters is the phrase "The fee must be made by (...)". This is nonsensical, and clearly requires some interpretation. If we're to read this as "the fee shall be paid by", then such a transfer clearly is a Rule-mandated transfer, as it specifies the only way that a Petition Fee can be paid. I honestly see no other sensible interpretation of this phrase. Thus the conclusions of the Statement. Evidence: Rule 1702/0 (Power=1) Petition Fee for Proposals All Proposals other than Disinterested Proposals have associated with them a Petition fee. This fee must be paid to the Bank between the submission of the Proposal and its distribution, otherwise the Proposal shall become Disinterested, as specified in other Rules. This fee must be made by sending a message to the Promotor, unambiguously specifying the Proposal whose fee is being paid, and ordering the transfer of the required P-Notes specifically for that Proposal. The Player transferring these P-Notes must have at least as many P-Notes as e is attempting to transfer, or no transfer of P-Notes is made, nor is the fee paid. The Petition fee for any Proposal is one P-Note unless another Rule specifies a higher fee. This rule takes precedence over any Rule that would require a lower fee, no fee, or a fee paid in Currency other than P-Notes, for Proposals that are not Disinterested. ======================================================================