Call for Judgment: english usage
Timed out and failed, alas. Josh
Adminned at 24 Mar 2006 04:30:34 UTC
Bucky and I apparently disagree on what ‘a’ and ‘an’ mean, so I may submit this CfJ.
I feel that Bucky believes that to “nominate an Avzur” means e can nominate four and that “a number between one and ten” can mean “ten numbers between one and ten” (although since his vote was an AGAINST vote in the specified place, it doesn’t matter).
dictionary.com may not be the best dictionary, but I’ll take ‘a’ or ‘an’ to both indicate “a single but unspecified person or thing”. Therefore, if this CfJ passes, add the following rule (in a place determined by the enacting Admin, who should take advice given in the comments):
References to “a X” or “an X” refer to only one unspecified X.
Also, it’s fair to read Bucky’s nominations as being 4 nominations of one at once. In this case, I feel the Ruleset needs some severe attention regarding what can be done at once. I recommend adding the following (again in a place determined by the enacting Admin):
No two or more game actions may be taken at the same time if the order in which they were taken would matter.
This allows something like setting a Happy Gostak’s mood to Content and moving em up a floor, but not something like nominating four Avzurs since the order matters: the last one nominated & voted for would be Avzur.
(I go Idle again). Note that the CfJ rule doesn’t preclude me to do that, nor it does exclude my vote after I go Idle.
This is not a good solution, I think. Of course, the “a” or “an” itself refers to a single thing, we don’t need a rule or a CfJ to tell us that. If it could be a problem, a rule which says something like “...may post a comment containing an integer between 1 and 10…” should specify that the action may not be taken more than once. Or more than often. Or occasionally. etc. If it doesn’t say otherwise, the implication is that it may be done repeatedly. For example: “Any Gostak at the Distimmery [2.3] may Distim a Dosh”. Is the correct interpretation of this that any Gostak may only Distim ONE Dosh EVER?
Bucky:
While I agree with Lars that my nomination of four Avzurs in the same post was illegal, I beleive this is due to formatting. Specifically, if it passes, the result would be undefined.
However, I strongly disagree with the proposed solution for several reasons.
1)There are places in the ruleset where “a” or “an” clearly can refer to several instances e.g. “If the Gostak who made a Proposal has not cast an explicit Vote on it, eir Vote is counted as FOR” applies to both of Lars Atomica’s pending proposals.
2)We do not always know when we take a batch of actions if their order would matter, given that new rules can reference past actions.
3)The fix for multiple actions being taken at the same time does not account for the possibility of a case where several actions designed to happen at the same time would have different effects if they happened at different times, or for rules which explicitly allow two otherwise separate actions to happen at the same time.
4)Matter for what? The ruleset wording? The overall Gamestate? My ego? The order in which the changes are recorded in the GNDT log?
These are major issues, and I don’t see any way around them.