On Wed, 7 May 2008, Ian Kelly wrote:
> I don't follow this. How are arbitrary gamestate changes made by
> establishing a contract? Contesthood is an attribute of a contract,
> and it's reasonable to define that attribute when specifying the
> contract.
Actually, it's not reasonable. Most contests start out as non-contests that
the contract specifies is "a contest", but the rules don't recognize the fact
until after w/o objection. In fact, it occurs to me that Contests aren't
defined explicitly in the Rules, but are defined by the mechanism that
creates them in R2136. Therefore, the implicit definition of "contest" is
"a contract that has gone through the following w/o objection mechanism."
Therefore, it is just nonsense to speak of a contest that didn't involve
this mechanism. The rules don't have to conflict:
1. root and ais523 made a contract.
2. The contract states "this is a contest".
3. It is indeed a possible binding agreement, and it's been made.
Just like other contests may be binding agreements *before* they
become contests.
4. But nothing in the above set of events "made" the agreement a
contest. The contest says it is, but that doesn't automatically
trigger that condition.
5. root and ais523 are free to use the w/o objection mechanism to
make it a contest!
-Goethe
