BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

Rivals are counted as Olympians, I thought. We cant afford to have Rivals reset to 0, that would make someone win.

I think that Chin is technically correct.  I infer that the term “Olympian” as used in the Ruleset (particularly the core rules) means a human being player, not an artifical-intelligence placeholder.  To interpret the term “Olympian” otherwise would mess up a lot of things.  (Can rivals make proposals or vote on them?  Can rivals access the GNDT? 

Finally, 1.2 says: “A single person may not control more than one Olympian within BlogNomic. If anybody is suspected of controlling more than one Olympian, then a Proposal may be made to remove any number of such Olympians from the game, and to bar the perpetrator from rejoining.”  If Rivals are Olympians and are “controlled” by the Coach, the Coach could potentially get bounced from the entire game.  Don’t think you want that result.

Fine. CfJ it to make everything consitant. But the point is that this CfJ *cannot* pass because if it does, Bucky wins. I still think the rules are fine, because of the text of the rivals rules. Also, one could say that the clause applies only to Olympians. If I were to say “I hunt with only women who have beards”, couldn’t one take that to mean that I will not hunt with a unbeareded woman, but says nothing about men.

While I agree the rules are a little hazy, and would vote for a CfJ that simply fixed the rules but let our rivals keep eir medals, the way this CfJ stands it cant be passed because that would be lame.

Then do a quick proposal to fix the rules before this CfJ closes.

Clucky is correct;  That clause was meant to apply only to Olympians and not to Rivals.

C’mon.  The only Olympians who can be awarded medals are the ones who meet the criteria for participation.  It’s not meant to imply anything about Rivals.  Indeed, it’s obvious from context in most of the other sentences in that Rule that Rivals may, in fact, participate in Events and earn medals.

Well.. If what you are saying is corect, Bucky can just change the gndt right now and declare victory since this is the correct game state as the rules read right now imho.

Bucky, Intent does not actually matter at all in nomics, its what the rules actually say that matters.

Of course intent matters.  If you completely ignore it, and justify all your actions with “Oh, well, there exists a completely unintended, yet possible interpretation of a rule which is slightly ambiguous out of context, under which my actions were technically legal” then you are not likely to prevail upon CfJ, especially when most Olympians are already operating under the intended interpretation.

The phrase
“Medals can only be awarded to Olympians who meet all the Criteria for Participation”

if taken in isolation and without reference to context, can be interpreted in two possible ways:

1) Medals can only be awarded to Olympians (i.e., not to non-Olympians).  Furthermore, an Olympian can be awarded a Medal only if the Olympian meets all the Criteria for Participation.

2) A Medal can be awarded to an Olympian if, in addition to satisfying whatever other requirements for the Event that may exist (such as having the best score in the Event), the Olympian also meets all the Criteria for Participation.  However, this text doesn’t say anything about whether a non-Olympian is required to meet all the Criteria for Participation in order to be eligible to be awarded a Medal.

To sum up, then, Chin supports interpretation #1 and a bunch of other people support interpretation #2.

Now that I’m giving this issue more thought, the text in Rule 2.2 (“From time to time, our Olympians will fail to win a medal, and the medal will instead be awarded to a competitor from another nation.”) makes it clear that a rival can conceivably be awarded a medal.

So it follows that Interpretation #2 above, and not Interpretation #1, is correct.  So

But, to address Clucky’s original point, it does not follow from this analysis that the term “Olympian” includes rival competitors.

Also, to respond to Hix, Chin is right that intent doesn’t matter; only the text of the ruleset matters.  If I posted a rule that says “All apples are red”, and I intended for it to mean “All cherries are red”, it’s the text that gets formally proposed and approved that matters, not what was in my head at the time.

But this is an academic argument with respect to the case at hand because, as I’ve shown, the text of the ruleset defeats Chin’s argument.

Are but then to extend your logic, Rivals can conceivably be awarded a medal.  If they are olymipans.  There is nothing saying rivals can’t be olympians, just there currently are no rivals who are also olympians. 

Thus while rivals can be awarded medals, this does not in fact disprove #1

  No. Certainly fix the rule, but you only need a proposal for that, not a CfJ. Anyway, we shouldn’t CfJ away all our rivals’ medals—that would mess up the gamestate.

But this is the point.  Its not messing up the gamestate, its fixing it.  If this is what the rule says then those medals should never have been awarded.

Still no. It’s not fixing the gamestate. As per spikebrennan, intent doesn’t count if the intent and the letter are completely different. However, when something is open to different interpretations, intent should be taken into consideration.