“if a rule attempts to refer to something by name, it cannot name something in a Draft”

What happens if a Draft names something that’s also named in the main ruleset? (eg. if I write a Draft that describes a thing called a “Ruleset”, what does that mean for a rule like “The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset”?)

@Kevan: then it names the real Ruleset, rather than the version of the Ruleset in a Draft – the rules are interpreted without reference to the content of drafts.

If you think that this is enough of a concern for potential rules breakage, I can withdraw for revision and either remove or clarify the example, but it is just an example.

But, I think this is OK because the Ruleset isn’t in a Draft, nor is it the name of a Draft – the example doesn’t extend to things that are merely named in Drafts. The “after 03:54:00 UTC on 18 May 2025” restriction was intended to prevent anything important from possibly being considered a Draft.

I can’t see any solid throughlines on a loophole or breakdown, but handing out boxes for free text which get called “rules” (and saying how core should be “interpreted”, bypassing prioritisation) does seem like the kind of thing where we might start by discussing whether a scam worked and realise that actually it means the ruleset has locked solid.

So a mild and cautionary . Given the subjective “that they believe their own Plan satisfies” stuff in the second proposal, this seems like it could just be flavour text without needing to enforce any deeper, ruleset-parseable structure onto it.

So I have an issue with the current definition of flavour text, in that it prevents the thing in question being interpreted at all, which is problematic in cases like this one where we do want it to have some meaning (in particular, a Mandate can’t be satisfied by meaningless flavour text).

Maybe we need some sort of “not a live rule” definition in the Appendix, in order to make this sort of thing clearer. (We already have something like that for Building Blocks.)

I am generally particularly concerned with both a) text injection scams and b) things that might lock up the ruleset — which is why I was trying to be so careful here – but if you’re concerned that it might not be enough then I am willing to revise. Do you have suggestions for an alternative wording that allows the Drafts to be meaningful, without being interpreted as current rules?

Hmm, what about this:

In the Appendix, after “Each individually numbered and titled block of text (using the wikimedia section heading formatting) of the Ruleset is a rule, including rules that are subrules of other rules; with the exception that the top-level headings defined as ‘sections’ in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” are considered sections but not rules themselves.”, add “The content of wiki pages other than the Ruleset is never considered to be or contain rules; when the contents of such a page are referred to as ‘rules’ by the ruleset or by a Votable Matter, it should be assumed that said contents are being referred to as potential or hypothetical rules, rather than actual rules.” (Language copied from the Building Blocks introduction, which could be satisfied.)

Then, in the rule being added by this proposal, “The contents of Drafts are ignored for the purpose of interpreting the rules, and their names are flavour text.” (without the other restrictions).

@Kevan: Would that be sufficient to assuage your concerns, or would there still be an issue?

I’m not really concerned, I just wouldn’t be very surprised.

I’d make it flavour text and rephrase Mandates as something like “Mandates that they believe their own Plan would satisfy if it were some rules and not flavour text”, but you’re right, maybe the rules don’t allow a human to hold a belief about flavour text.

(Simultaneous post there and I don’t have time to respond to the second comment, I’m afraid!)

(revise-withdrawn at quorum) I think Kevan is right to be worried, and I found a good way to word this, so I’m going to submit a version that’s much more obviously immune to text injection.

COV