On Wed, 7 May 2008, Ed Murphy wrote:
> Furthermore, Enigma explicitly acknowledges that it is /intended/ to be
> a contest ("The purpose of this contract is to be a contest..."), and
> thus implicitly acknowledges that it will fail to operate as intended
> if it loses that status.It's sort of a SYN/ACK. SYN: The contract can say "This shall become a contest", "This is intended to be a contest" or even "This is a contest and I don't care if the Rules say it isn't!" It can then proceed on its merry way, posting records, points etc. Or not mention the word contest, but have clauses for awarding "points". ACK: Agora says: "now that you followed the W/O objection, you are recognized by our rules as a contest, and the scorekeepor will track your points as Agoran points." Note that this ACK is entirely independent of what the contract itself claims. The contract can have an escape clause (terminate or fail if no ACK, as Murphy mentions for Enigma). Or, the contest can ignore the lack of ACK, keep claiming to be a contest, and post points awards whether or not Agora records them (in fact it may be required to or be in breach of contract!). root's contract falls into this latter category. Aside: Other possible causes for divergence: the contract mandates a contestmaster change. But the change does not get the required no objections in Agora. The "contestmaster" defined by the contract could then differ from the one that Agora recognizes, probably breaking the score awards (the contract-defined contestmaster would be the only one allowed by the contract to post award notices, but Agora would only recognize such posts made by the Agoran-defined contestmaster). -Goethe
