Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Call for Judgment: ‘Transfer’

8-0.  Reached Quorum and then some.—Excalabur

Adminned at 29 Sep 2005 23:42:43 UTC

The Text of Mind Control reads:

A Country using Telecracy may Mind Control. This transfers an amount of population units from the defending presence to the attacking presence equal to the square root of the defending presence plus one (rounding all fractions up to the nearest integer).

.

The glossary has an entry that reads:

Unless otherwise specified, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers, and any action that would set those values below zero instead sets them to zero.

The question at hand is the Mind Control of Smith by Jamuraa at Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  Smith had 1 Population present, and loses 2 of them to Mind Control.  Since e only had one there, eir population in the territory is set to 0. 

However, does Jamuraa gain 1 or 2 population? 

It can be argued that the word ‘transfer’ implies that Jamuraa cannot gain what Smith did not lose.  If you are in this camp, vote FOR this CfJ.  Upon passage, reduce Jamuraa’s population in Somewhere over the Rainbow by 1.  If the person in question has been moved or converted to someone else’s cause, reduce the appropriate population accordingly.  Furthermore, this CfJ shall be precedent for future actions of the same type, and interpretations of the word ‘transfer’.

If you, however, feel that Jamuraa deserves his extra population, vote against this CfJ.

posted by Call for Judgment at 28 Sep 2005 19:01:42 UTC Comments (9)

Comments

Purplebeard:

28-09-2005 20:05:19 UTC

against
The way I see it, the word ‘transfer’ implies that the increase of Jamuraa’s population should be equal to the decrement of Smith’s. So 2 people are simultaniously removed from Smith and added to Jamuraa’s presence, and the clause in the glossary then responds to this by setting Smith’s population presence to 0.

Excalabur:

28-09-2005 20:54:26 UTC

for except that you can’t subtract what isn’t there.  At no time can smith have negative people…

Also, it makes much more sense this way: people aren’t coming out of nowhere

jamuraa:

28-09-2005 21:34:41 UTC

for
There is no bonus to having extra people.  I read the rule one way mostly because I thought you could have negative population, but I’ll gladly have less mouths to feed.

ChronosPhaenon:

28-09-2005 22:01:07 UTC

for

Rodney:

28-09-2005 23:08:22 UTC

for

Tekneek:

29-09-2005 09:29:10 UTC

for It does not seem reasonable that you could have a negative amount of people. Therefore it never went below zero. Additionally, you can’t get two people from a transfer of one person.

smith:

29-09-2005 14:33:01 UTC

for Purplebeard, at first I interpreted this the same way as you, but now I think it is just easier to make this the default behavior for ‘transfer’, otherwise the ruleset will require tortured descriptions of how to transfer something.

Purplebeard:

29-09-2005 15:19:57 UTC

for COV. You’re right; I’m too scientific for my own good, assuming abstract numbers exist.

gazebo_dude:

29-09-2005 16:49:45 UTC

for