Firstly, I would like to apologize for being absent for a while up until just now. And I would like to additionally apologize that I can’t do certain things I’m supposed to do, due to the current Hiatus. I would also like to state that I would not mind my Dynasty ending here, and like this. However,

This seems relatively clearcut. And it doesn’t work.

Let’s just look at the statement in question: “All rules that may cause an Attack to be able to occur should be appended as Subrules to this Rule.” This means that they should be placed under that rule, but does not allow, in and of itself, their creation. I don’t think this is really arguable.

But, even further, we’re not using the English definition of the word should. It’s defined in the glossary. The statement, functionally, is: “All rules that [are permitted to] cause an Attack to be able to occur [are recommended to] be appended as Subrules to this Rule.” Cleaned up a little for grammar, obviously; “All rules that is permitted to cause an Attack to be able to occur is recommended that be appended as Subrules to this Rule.” is a bit of a mess.

It seems clearly only a recommendation that they be placed there, and in no way, shape, or form, an allowance of their addition, in and of itself.

I’d say it was the same as “A Hunter should update the Golden Archipelago wiki page to reflect this” - the “should” allows us to take the action, we don’t need an additional rule saying “Hunters can update the Golden Archipelago wiki page”.

It doesn’t, though.

I think that just means updating the Golden Archipelago wiki page is broken, apparently? This rule certainly doesn’t allow you to add rules from nowhere. Just read it, in its own context, divorced from precedent and the connotations of the English word should.

Seems okay to me, as well as the other shoulds in the ruleset. “The Pirate should react to a request to Parley by Telling a Tale” doesn’t require another separate rule saying “the Pirate can Tell Tales but only when permitted to”.

But there’s no rule that regulates Telling a Tale; there are rules that regulate changing the Ruleset, as the Ruleset is gamestate. I can Tell a Tale the same way I can make a comment, or a PM; upon doing so in reaction to a Parley, I can change gamestate, via a manner laid out by the Ruleset.

“Should” appears in the Ruleset 16 times; for the Core Rules: The first two occurrences refer to things Admins should announce, via comments or posts, which they can make via other rules; the third is that the Pirate should specify the theme in their Ascension Address, which is something they’re allowed to do by simply putting content in a post; seven are “should not"s in the Fair Play rules; it is defined in the Glossary, appearing once; and once in Numbers and Variables, “If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.” which is written with the non-keyword version in mind, but still works, I think.

In the Dynastic rules, we have it four times:

“At the start of each week, the Treasure Rating of each island increases by 1 (to a maximum of 10). A Hunter should update the Golden Archipelago wiki page to reflect this, and no hunter may perform a Raid if the Golden Archipelago wiki page has not been updated for that week.” So, Raiding is broken, apparently. That needs sorted out. The other three occurrences, however, work:

“The Pirate should react to such an exploration by Describing the Island, if they have not done so already for that exploration action: upon doing so, they reduce the Hunter’s Pieces by 1 (this reduction may cause that number to become negative) and privately message the Hunter a list of all the Landmarks on the explored Island.”

“The Pirate should react to such a tipoff by Scouting the Island, if they have never Scouted that Island before: upon doing so, they respond to the blog entry with a blog comment listing all Landmarks on the scouted Island. If a shipwreck appears in that list, the Pirate increases the Hunter’s Pieces by 1; otherwise they decrease the Hunter’s Pieces by 1 (this reduction may cause that number to become negative).”

“The Pirate should react to a request to Parley by Telling a Tale, if they have not done so already for that request: upon doing so, they reduce the Hunter’s Pieces by the value specified in the post (this reduction may cause that number to become negative) and privately message the Hunter a Tale to that value, as listed below.”

It is only upon doing the recommended, unregulated action, that gamestate is affected.

There is no precedent within the Core Rules that a “An X should Y” explicitly allows Y to be done, in and of itself, and if there is precedent in the Dynastic Rules or gameplay then that simply means an incorrect interpretation has been held in the past,

Because,

Divorced from precedent (which isn’t really a thing), and the connotations of the English word should (which are superseded),

Is there anything in the sentence “All rules that are permitted to cause an Attack to be able to occur are recommended to be appended as Subrules to this Rule.” that actually allows those rules to be appended as Subrules to this Rule?

No, no there is not.

Yes, you can append rules as Subrules to that Rule,

But you must do so through channels allowed by the Ruleset, such as Proposals.

Regardless of weather the action works or not, Kevan didn’t have permission to preform the action. Nobody did. This is the same thing as Raichu’s ‘Quorum is One’ was, in that even if the action is allowed by the ruleset, you need to be allowed to preform it.

Just as “Hunters may be granted X” doesn’t allow anyone to actually grant X, “All rules that may cause an Attack to be able to occur should be appended as Subrules to this Rule.” doesn’t allow rules to be added.

As much as I wish this was valid, it doesn’t quite work.

A “possible rule” or “potential rule” is not a rule yet!  So appending it was therefore an illegal rule change and your subsequent modification attempt failed. 

I recommend voting AGAINST this.  Bucky, Defender of the Ruleset, sighing off.

Also, I suggest fixing that sentence to reference “dynastic” rules before some joker decides that it’s a good idea to relocate Rule 1.5 (“Proposals”).

One can’t relocate a Rule by fiat, for the same reasons one can’t add one by fiat; you raise a good point that it’s flawed anyways but I still stand by mine. No harm in clarifying that its only Dynastic rules that should be governed by the should anyways, though.