Passes 9-4. -Bucky
Adminned at 05 Nov 2022 00:40:52 UTC
While Rule 2.1 specifies Energy must be non-negative, it has no such provision for medals. “Numbers and Variables” means spending is a simple subtraction. I had the Ducky and there was a Grand Party on. So I could subtract 100 from my Medals under “Medal shower”, resulting in a negative Medal quantity, to achieve victory.
The preceding vote by Raven1207, who had according to the sidebar had not actually unidled himself, appears to be invalid.
“If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the Ruleset.”
hm, medals are defined to hold an integer, not a numeric value
not sure if this applies then
Yeah, medals are allowed to be any integer value (this is specified, so we don’t use the default case), but it’s never specified that they must be non-negative.
The other half of that sentence is imo more instructive: “Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the Ruleset.” To me that means that a role has to explicitly allow for a negative value to be held, not just implicitly through the use of “integers” rather than “non-negative integers”.
Josh: So if there were a rule that states “The Drag Factor is a multiple of 0.1 between -1 and 0 exclusive”, you argue it would be illegal to take any action that sets it, because even though its values are specified and negative, satisfying the initial “if”, it doesn’t actually say outright that its value can be *set* to those negative values?
I don’t think I’m very interested in engaging in hypotheticals - the current situation is what it is, the ruletext is what it is, analogy doesn’t seem likely to serve to illuminate anything that isn’t already clear. In your scenario the inclusion of an explicit “-1” might change the way I interpreted the test of “explicitly otherwise stated” in the ruleset, as might the wording of the action that caused your Drag Factor to be amended, but none of that seems very relevant to Medals, which do not seem to have any explicit reference to negative numbers at all anywhere in the chain.
See I had interpreted “those values” to be exactly the “only non-negative integers” assigned to numeric variables with no set of valid values.
I had thought it absurd to interpret it “those values” as referring to any numeric value regardless of whether it uses the same values that the previous sentence was talking about.
The Drag Factor example was merely to highlight the absurdity by applying it to a variable where no legal value makes sense to apply it to.
The use of the word “absurd” in both of those posts has less persuasive effect than you might think!
But you do you I suppose. For the record, I think that “those values” in the second clause refers very clearly to “game variables defined to hold numeric values” in the first, using as it does the same terminology, but if you want to try to insult anyone else into changing their vote then by all means feel free to move on.
I sympathize with what Josh says about “explicit” but I think that the proximity of the game definitions makes the Medals definition explicit. The wording is:
“Each Partygoer has a set amount of Energy, which is a non-negative integer value that defaults to 10. Each Partygoer has a publicly tracked quantity of Medals, which is an integer value that defaults to 0”
Energy is said to be a “non-negative integer”, followed immediately by Medals which is said to be an “integer”, not including the words “non-negative” even though it follows right after Energy. Whether it was meant to or or not, a straight reading of this rule implies to me that the choice of leaving out “non-negative” was on purpose.
More than “on purpose”, it is explicit by its omission.
Oh I agree that it is on purpose, but ‘explicit’ by definition can’t be defined by omission - it requires a positive, declarative statement, in my opinion.
I realized that I didn’t explain myself well. When stating that Medals is an “integer”, I believe that it’s the explicit definition of the valid integer values and rules out all other integer value constraints.
As an example, if I said “the sky is blue”, would you say that since I didn’t explicitly state “and is no other colors” that you could also say the sky is red? It’s understood that classifying the sky as blue explicitly rules out all other choices.
Similarly, stating that Medals is an “integer” explicitly rules out “non-negative integers” as a constraint. It would also rule out “non-positive integers” as a constraint. It’s stating explicitly what the valid values are, which are all integers.
That’s the way I see it - it was specified that negatives are allowed when the value type was (explicitly) set to “integers”, which explicitly includes negative integers as a part of that set.
At some point when slots permit I’m going to propose to add a term like “standard number” to the glossary to cover stuff like this.
Because although good in concept, I don’t like burgers with cheese. (And also I don’t think it works)
Okay, so if I’m doing maths good this needs 8 FOR to enact, and the 4 AGAINST is enough to prevent that, without a vote being changed; however, it is not enough to make it Unpopular, which means that it has to time out.
Who unidled you? I advised you under the mistaken impression that you were an admin.
This really seem like it works, “integers” explicitly includes negative integers. 
I think I understand Josh’s objection at this point, and why my difference of philosophical (and historical, maybe) perspective motivates my difference of vote.
I’ve unidled for the tiebreak. Quorum remains at 7. 2/3 increases to 26/3, which means 9 allows this to pass. (I think we’re there?)
FOR:
TyGuy6
Raven1207
JonathanDark
Snail
Bucky
Trapdoorspyder
Habanero
Darknight
Snisbo
(9)
AGAINST:
Benbot
Madrid
Josh
Lendunistus
(4)
Threshold for passage is 9.
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Bucky:
Also, Local Objects clauses only apply to Partying Partygoers.