Justice/Archive

From B Nomic

Newer Judicial Cases (since the Agoran ruleset was copied) can found on this page.

The previous archive containing consultations 1 to 192 has moved to Justice/OldArchive.

Requests For Judgement contains RFJs from the old version of rule 2-5.

It is unlikely that consultations and RFJs have any relevance to the current gamestate but they form part of game custom and so could be used as part of reasoning for a CFI.

Contents 1 CFIs 1.1 CFI 101 1.1.1 Arguments 1.1.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.2 CFI 102 1.2.1 Arguments 1.2.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.3 CFI 103 1.3.1 Arguments 1.3.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.4 CFI 104 1.4.1 Arguments 1.4.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.5 CFI 105 1.5.1 Arguments 1.5.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.6 CFI 106 1.6.1 Arguments 1.6.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.7 CFI 107 1.7.1 Arguments 1.7.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.8 CFI 108 1.8.1 Arguments 1.8.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.9 CFI 109 1.9.1 Arguments 1.9.2 Judge's Reasoning 1.10 CFI 110 1.10.1 Arguments 1.10.2 Judge's Reasoning 2 CFJs 2.1 CFJ 1 2.1.1 Judgement 2.2 CFJ 2 2.2.1 Arguments 2.2.2 Judgements 2.3 CFJ 23 2.4 CFJ 24 2.4.1 Judgements 2.5 CFJ 25 2.6 CFJ 26 2.6.1 Judgements

CFIs

CFI 101

'The old ndelay and the watch are equivalent, and so the delay mandated by rule 49.B.6 has already been satisfied.'

Submitted by teucer on 19 December 2009.

Defendant: none

Assigned to Judge 0x44 on 19 December 2009 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: TRUE (0x44, 21 December 2009)

Arguments

the ndelay and the watch serve identical functions, as the measurement of how long the clock has been off for. I believe it is readily apparent that they are the same entity, merely with the name changed and the description of its function rewritten.

Judge's Reasoning

I answer CFI 101 SURE_WHY_NOT. Since we have reverted to a game state that does not have synonyms for boolean values. I answer CFI 101 TRUE.

CFI 102

'The entity identified as 'Justin Ahmann' posting from the email address 'quesmarktion@sbcglobal.net' is registered as a Player of B Nomic by the name 'Codae

Submitted by 0x44 on 21 December 2009.

Defendant: none

Assigned to Judge teucer on 21 December 2009 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: TRUE (teucer, 22 December 2009)

Arguments

An entity may not register as a player more than once. The entity was already a player when e purported to register with the name Creampuff1.

Subsequent to that attempted registration, e sent two additional messages purporting to register with the names Creampuff2 and Creampuff3. If the first attempt at registration deregistered em and reregistered em with the new name, e should be registered as Creampuff3. If eir first attempt to register as Creampuff1 failed because e was already registered, e is still registered as Codae. The first line of reasoning does not seem to follow from the rules, and wishing to register is not synonymous with wishing to deregister and reregister. There already exists a mechanism by which a player may change eir name, so the entity identified as 'Justin Ahmann' should be registered as the player Codae.

Judge's Reasoning

This is actually somewhat tricky, though not in ways that make the scam work. One player per entity, that much is clear.

However, an entity can become a player, and this does not require em to not already be one. It just doesn't enable em to become two players. The act of becoming a player implies, by any sane definition of "become," that a change of state occurs. This could mean one of two things - first, that the old player becomes a new player, or second, that the registration fails.

Since there is no indication in the ruleset that the action causes the old player to deregister, I assert that a requirement for becoming a player (which is obviously and tautologically not a requirement for being a player) is, by the definition of the word "become," not being a player already.

CFI 103

'I believe that this attempted action fails, on the grounds that there is no mechanism for B Nomic Sucking. Am I correct in this belief?'

Submitted by Marr965 on 31 December 2009.

Defendant: none

Assigned to Judge Codae on 31 December 2009 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: UNDECIDED (Codae, 01 January 2010)

Arguments

The "attempted action" is quoted below:

--- On Sat, 19/12/09, Kenner Gordon <kennercat@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Kenner Gordon <kennercat@gmail.com> Subject: [s-b] Ambassador Report To: spoon-business@nomic.net Date: Saturday, 19 December, 2009, 2:59

I intend, without 523 objections, to cause B Nomic to Suck.

Judge's Reasoning

We can't tell whether the Plaintiff actually believed this. Even if we ask him, he might lie.

CFI 104

'The purported distribution of a ballot on or about Rushnight of the current nweek constitutes recognition of all proposals mentioned'

Submitted by teucer on 31 December 2009.

Defendant: none

Assigned to Judge 0x44 on 31 December 2009 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: TRUE (0x44, 31 December 2009)

Arguments

since it clearly wasn't a valid ballot but did assign numbers to all the proposals, I think this is clearly TRUE.

Judge's Reasoning

I answer CFI 104 TRUE. I've updated the public display of the Clock to reflect what I think is the correct ndelay.

CFI 105

'The Gnome Factory creates no gnomes in nweek 162.'

Submitted by teucer on 03 January 2010.

Defendant: none

Assigned to Judge Marr965 on 03 January 2010 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: UNDECIDED (Marr965, 05 January 2010)

Appealed by teucer on 05 January 2010 and will be voted on in nweek 162.

Arguments

The gnome factory's gnome creation is mentioned earlier in rule 65 (65/0-A.4) than the appearance of Sheep Gnomes (65/0-B.12), but this seems like an odd thing to have decide. At the beginning of the nweek, two sheep gnomes appear on the grid, and at the beginning of the nweek the Gnome Factory creates some gnomes iff there are gnomes on the grid.

I believe this to be true on the grounds that last nweek there were no gnomes on the grid, but am uncertain.

(Also, the rules don't specify who figures out where the gnomes go, but the gardener would be the obvious choice.)

Judge's Reasoning

I judge CFI 105 UNDECIDED, on the ground that the rules for which action comes first (Sheep Gnome Placement or Gnome Factory Activation) are ambiguous.

CFI 106

'A player who forfeits ceases to be a player of B Nomic'

Submitted by 0x44 on 11 January 2010.

Defendant: none

Assigned to Judge teucer on 11 January 2010 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: TRUE (teucer, 11 January 2010)

Arguments

Judge's Reasoning

Longstanding nomic custom holds that the answer probably ought to be true. On the other hand, coppro continues to meet the definition of a player spelled out in the rules, which very clearly means e is a player.

I see two possible ways to deal with this. The first is to respect the ordinary-language meaning of forfeit, which since the ruleset is written in everyday (if slightly legalistic) English except where terms are given jargon meanings would seem to make sense. Since this would simply mean that coppro loses the game (of B Nomic, as distinct from the one I just lost) but does not cease to be a player, it would imply an answer of FALSE. The other approach is to suppose that forfeiting is, contrary to coppro's assertions, a means of revoking one's consent to be a player, in which case the answer is TRUE, but coppro has made it clear that e still consents to being a player. This would appear to create a challenge to this interpretation, but I contend that it does not.

Because there is no state of having lost B Nomic, one cannot gain that state voluntarily; the meaning based on the everyday usage in the specialist context that is the history of Nomic is thus more appropriate here. On the other hand, in posting arguments about this CFI to the PF, coppro explicitly stated that e meets all the requirements for being a player, including consenting to said designation. This consent was offered more recently than eir forfeiture; ergo, having ceased to be a player by explicitly if obliquely withdrawing eir consent, coppro became a player again this afternoon.

CFI 107

'Was the proposal the entity identified by the nickname Marr965 submitted a "bribe proposal"'

Submitted by Marr965 on 25 January 2010.

Defendant: teucer

Assigned to Judge 0x44 on 25 January 2010 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: TRUE (0x44, 25 January 2010)

Arguments

none

Judge's Reasoning

There are no instances of the word 'bribe' in the ruleset, implying that bribery is unregulated. Rule 50 A prohibits the submission of a proposal that discriminate between players based upon their voting actions on that proposal, but otherwise does not prohibit proposals that uniformly affect all players. The subject of the proposal asserts that the proposal is not a bribe proposal, but the title of the proposal is "Bribe them with kindness". Since the title of the proposal is part of the record of the object, while the subject line has no tangible effect on gameplay, we must assume that the title of the proposal is correct and the proposal entitled "Bribe them with kindness" is in fact a bribe proposal.

CFI 108

'Section B.6 of Rule 49 causes each player's Entropy to increase based on the number of actions taken by all players, not just that player.'

Submitted by Murphy on 23 January 2010.

Defendant: none

Assigned to Judge teucer on 25 January 2010 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: TRUE (teucer, 25 January 2010)

Arguments

none

Judge's Reasoning

none

CFI 109

'A proposal has been submitted which, if adopted, would award each player ten points.'

Submitted by teucer on 25 January 2010.

Defendant: Marr596

Assigned to Judge Murphy on 25 January 2010 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: TRUE (Murphy, 25 January 2010)

Arguments

none

Judge's Reasoning

I judge TRUE, but point out that Rule 50 section A neither prohibits submitting such a proposal nor nullifies its effects if adopted.

CFI 110

'Refresh Proposals are Proposals'

Submitted by 0x44 on 02 March 2010.

Defendant: none

Assigned to Judge coppro on 02 April 2010 by Oracle JamesB.

Judgement: FALSE (coppro, 03 April 2010)

This CFI was previously assigned to Wooble on 02 March 2010 but Wooble was recused on 02 April 2010 as he failed to answer the CFI within 7 days.

Arguments

Rule 0 defines Refresh Proposals as a fixed body of text marked as a refresh proposal submitted by a PEP to a public forum. Rule 23 defines a Proposal as a formal request for a set of rule changes or other changes to the game state. Without Rule 23's definition of a Proposal, Rule 0's Refresh Proposals could cause no effect on the game state or the ruleset. This is itself problematic, as Rule 10 prohibits proposals from temporarily suspending or ignoring the rules.

This would seem to imply that there has been no official way to alter the gamestate of B since the last emergency ended.

Judge's Reasoning

The definition of Refresh proposal is provided in Rule 0: "A Refresh Proposal is a fixed body of text clearly marked as a Refresh Proposal and submitted to a Public Forum by a PEP." The only thing that would imply that a Refresh Propsoal is a Proposal is its name, however, given that the definition of Refresh Proposal is complete, there is no reason to consider them Proposals.

CFJs

CFJ 1

'Messages sent to spoon-business@nomic.net clearly marked as Public are considered to be Public' (District Inquiry)

Judgement: TRUE

• Tue, 12 May 2009 13:46 - Called by Wooble
• Tue, 12 May 2009 13:46 - assigned to Judge Wooble by Deputy CotC
• Wooble (fails - not qualified)
• Tue, 12 May 2009 13:46 - judged TRUE by Wooble (fails - not assigned judge)
• Wed, 13 May 2009 19:16 - assigned to Judge BobTHJ by Deputy CotC Wooble
• Wed, 13 May 2009 19:24 - judged TRUE by BobTHJ

Judgement

• BobTHJ: Since either true or false could be reasonably interpreted based upon

the various arguments that have arisen, the good of the game demands that I judge TRUE.

CFJ 2

'Tiger's caste is Alpha' (District Inquiry)

Judgement: FALSE

• Tue, 12 May 2009 18:53 - Called by Wooble
• Tue, 12 May 2009 18:59 - assigned to Judge ais523 by Deputy CotC Tiger
• Tue, 12 May 2009 19:03 - judged TRUE by ais523
• Tue, 12 May 2009 19:21 - Appeal iniated by Wooble
• Tue, 12 May 2009 19:25 - Appeal supported by 0x44
• Tue, 12 May 2009 19:31 - Appealled by BobTHJ
• Wed, 13 May 2009 19:16 - assigned to appeal panel {Tiger, 0x44, BobTHJ} by deputy CotC Wooble
• Wed, 13 May 2009 19:24 - BobTHJ opines OVERRULE - FALSE
• Wed, 13 May 2009 19:29 - Tiger opines OVERRULE - FALSE
• Thu, 14 May 2009 14:54 - 0x44 opines OVERRULE - FALSE
• Thu, 14 May 2009 14:54 - Overruled to FALSE on appeal

Arguments

• Wooble: The Grand Poobah never incurred an obligation to flip castes in May because the relevant rule wasn't in the ruleset at the start of the month. Thus, the attempt to deputise for the office is INVALID.

• Wooble (appellant): the judge's reasoning argues for FALSE, i.e., that Tiger's caste is not Alpha.

Judgements

• ais523 (suspended): I judge CFJ 2 TRUE, on the basis that rules cannot have a retroactive effect (such as producing an obligation on someone with a deadline before the time at which the rule was enacted).

• BobTHJ: I agree with ais523's reasoning, though he obviously entered a mistaken judgment. I opine OVERRULE - FALSE.

CFJ 23

'The above-quoted text constitutes an objection to JamesB's intent to initiate an emergency' (Inquiry)

(the quoted text was "I won't let you do that, Starfox!")

• Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:04:01 - Submitted by Teucer
• Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:06:48 - Asssigned to Judge 0x44 by Oracle JamesB

CFJ 24

'teucer has supported JamesB's most recent intent to initiate an emergency' (Inquiry)

Judgement: TRUE

• Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:34:03 - Submitted by Walker
• Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:06:48 - Asssigned to Judge Goethe by Oracle JamesB
• Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:11:41 - Judged TRUE by Judge Goethe

Judgements

• Goethe: I answer TRUE. "Consent" is close enough to "support" given the obvious context.

CFJ 25

'Marr has objected to JamesB's most recent intent to initiate an emergency' (Inquiry)

• Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:34:03 - Submitted by Walker
• Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:06:48 - Asssigned to Judge Teucer by Oracle JamesB

CFJ 26

'Marr965 violated rule 81/0 ("Truthiness," a power-1 rule) by publicly making a false statement that e merely unreasonably believed to be true in eir ballot for nweek 160' (Criminal)

Judgement: GUILTY - APOLOGY (waiting for Marr965 to apologise)

• Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:25:25 - NoV submitted by Teucer
• Thu, 5 Nov 2009 18:22:44 - NoV contested by Walker
• Tue, 1 Dec 2009 07:55:55 - Asssigned to Judge Wooble by Oracle JamesB
• Tue, 1 Dec 2009 11:32:57 - Judged GUILTY by Judge Wooble and a punishment of APOLOGY assigned

Judgements

• Wooble: I assign a judgement of GUILTY to the question on culpability in CFJ 26.

I sentence the ninny to APOLOGY, with the following prescribed words:

broccoli
quixotic
rules
creampuff
cheese
weather
whether