From owner-agora-officia-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au Tue Sep 16 06:43 EDT 1997 Received: from gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (majordom-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au [144.110.168.141]) by cs.brown.edu (8.8.5/8.7.1) with ESMTP id GAA04763 for dp-@cs.brown.edu; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 06:43:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom-@localhost) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA30022 for agora-official-list; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:47:27 +1000 Received: from wsinfm15.win.tue.nl (wsinfm15.win.tue.nl [131.155.69.168]) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA30019 for agora-officia-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 19:47:20 +1000 Received: by wsinfm15.win.tue.nl (8.7.1/1.45) id LAA29457; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 11:49:27 +0200 (MET DST) From: engel-@win.tue.nl (Andre Engels) Message-Id: 199709160949.laa2945-@wsinfm15.win.tue.nl Subject: OFF: CFJ 942 Judgement: FALSE To: agora-officia-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (nomic-official list) Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 11:49:27 +0200 (MET DST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-agora-officia-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au Precedence: bulk Reply-To: agora-discussio-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 5361 Status: N ====================================================================== CFJ 942 Rule 789 should be interpreted such that a document purporting to be a Call for Judgement alleging that a Rule should be interpreted in a certain way, but which does not include a list of Relevant Rules assembled by the Caller, which includes the Rule being interpreted, is not in fact a CFJ, and that therefore neither the Clerk of the Courts nor any other Player incur any obligations regarding it. ====================================================================== Judge: ChrisM Judgement: FALSE Eligible: Andre, Blob, Calabresi, ChrisM, Chuck, Crito, Elde, elJefe, General Chaos, Harlequin, Kolja A., Michael, Morendil, Murphy, Oerjan, Vir, Vlad, Zefram Not eligible: Caller: Steve Barred: On request: Vanyel On hold: Swann ====================================================================== History: Called by Steve, 13 Sep 1997, 07:37 Wrongly assigned to General Chaos, 15 Sep 1997, 10:30 +0200 (MET DST) Assigned to ChrisM, 15 Sep 1997 10:43 +0200 (MET DST) Judged FALSe by ChrisM, 15 Sep 97 13:58:10 -0400 ====================================================================== Relevant Rules: 789, 991 ====================================================================== (Caller's) Arguments: I don't really have particularly strong feelings about this one way or the other, but it seems we need a decision, and this will set a precedent we can use in future cases, should any such arise. I have a mild tendency to think that the Statement is TRUE, for reasons which I outline below. There are reasonable arguments on both sides, which the Judge must choose between. These turn on how the word 'must' in R789 should be interpreted: A CFJ alleging a Rule should be interpreted in a certain way must be accompanied by a list of relevant Rules, assembled by the Caller, which includes the Rule being interpreted. On the one hand, we could interpret this 'must' as imposing an obligation on a Caller to include a list of Relevant Rules, an obligation which, if the Caller fails to meet it, results in the Caller having violated R789. On this reading, there is no reason to think that the legality of the CFJ is brought into question by the Caller's having violated R789, and so the Statement would be FALSE. On the other hand, we could interpret this 'must' as imposing a condition on what it takes to be a CFJ. On this reading, it is partially definitive of being a CFJ (of the relevant kind) that it be accompanied by a list of Relevant Rules. This would bring R789 into conflict with R991, which offers an incompatible definition: Any document submitted to the Clerk of the Courts and which is clearly marked as a Call for Judgement is a Call for Judgement. Since R789 wins this conflict by virtue of its lower Number, we arrive at the conclusion that the Statement is TRUE. Two possible interpretations, both plausible. Is there any reason to favour one over the other? I think there is such a reason: the precise wording of R789, which states that "A CFJ...must...", and not "The Caller of a CFJ...must...". I think this gives us a reason to regard to R789 more plausibly as imposing a condition on what it takes to be a CFJ than as imposing a requirement on the Caller. It may not be a terribly powerful reason for preferring the second interpretation to the first, but in the absence of other compelling reasons to make one judgement rather than the other, it may prove decisive. At any rate, I offer it to the Judge for eir consideration. Requested Injunction: I request that the Judge issue an Injunction requiring the Rulekeepor to annotate R789 with the Statement, as e is permitted to do by R789. [Maybe at last I'll get my self-referential annotation of R789!] ====================================================================== Decision and Reasoning Judge: My judgement on CFJ 942: FALSE. But for a reason no one seems to have noticed. I was, at first, quite inclined to agree with the Caller. In fact, I felt less equivocal about it than he did. It seemed to me that, in the absence of clear wording specifying that, without a list of Relevant Rules, the *Caller* had made an error or committed a crime, the correct interpretation would be that the CFJ was simply invalid without said list. The minimum requirement for that list would simply be a notation that the rule in question was itself relevant to the CFJ; after all, "a list of relevant rules" does not imply a *complete* list. And as anyone with LISP or set theory experience knows, a list with only one item is still a list. But then I came to the part in the Caller's argument related to Rule 991. He noted that, under my interpretation of Rule 789, the two rules were in conflict. He then stated that, because of rule 789's lower number, it takes precedence. And that would be well and true except that Rule 991 has a Power of 2, while Rule 789 has a Power of 1. Under Rule 1482 (Power=3), Rule 991 thus takes precedence, and we are in a situation where Any document submitted to the Clerk of the Courts and which is clearly marked as a Call for Judgement is a Call for Judgement. (991/3) Therefore the statement is FALSE.