First of all Michael, I think we are agreeing on 95% percent of
what we are saying. There's just a couple of subtleties that are
missing in us agreeing completely, and those are subtleties that
aren't involved in the current, actual situations.
When you "deem" your
nickname to be PineappleLover, you do so by posting some announcement
to this effect to the appropriate mailing list and the Herald pays the
appropriate amount of attention, all as required by the rules.
Except there are no rules whatsoever saying that names can be
set or changed by announcement. There are no rules anywhere saying
how names can be changed. But we accept that names can be legally
changed by the announcement from the named party. That's far from
obvious: not many legal systems would allow that!
Until we get such a rule, or until you pass a proposal covering your
specific instance of rules-recognised-deeming, or until a Judge
insists on it and annotates a rule accordingly, then all
pineapple-deemings are and remain fluff.
I agree. I'm talking about the case that in which a rule is passed
that says: "Any player who is a pineapple may vote twice" but
includes no accompanying clause describing how a player may become a
pineapple. In that case, R101(i) says that a player may become
a pineapple if its what e wilt (because becoming a pineapple isn't
regulated), and the rules must take that into account when counting
votes.
One thing that you might consider: The preamble to R101 is much
stronger that it used to be. My argument is based on that new
preamble is extremely protective of a person's privilege of
engaging in unregulated behavior and having it be legally recognized.
I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear that I wouldn't be making this
argument without the new wording of R101, I'm interested in if you
think this new rule text changes things.
-Goethe
