On Fri, 23 May 2008, comex wrote: > Against duck-typing: In CFJ 1772, Zefram set the precedent that the > Rules cannot be a binding agreement, because otherwise R101 rights > would apply and cause effects that contradict custom. For example-- > let's just say that my scam worked-- I would have made everyone bound > by an amendment to the Rules that nobody had an opportunity to review. > If the Rules are a binding agreement, then R101 (v) would prevent > that-- yet nobody argued that case.
With all due respect, this is entirely against Agoran custom, as is CFJ 1772, which greatly frustrated me at the time. The Rules have always been an agreement between persons that they are playing a game and that they obey the Rules, otherwise they're not playing the game. When "rights and privileges" were introduced, it was the specific intent of the legislation to implement and formalize this agreement through a (self-referential, because this is Nomic) statement that we are bound by a self-enforcing agreement to play the game according to the Rules. CFJ 1772 imposed extraneous and unsupported notions that Agoran agreements must be "real world contract like" rather than looking like a Ruleset, whereas the reality is that we have defined contracts to appear like rulesets. Witness the fact that many contests (which are definitely Agoran contracts) read like Nomic Rulesets, not like the "real world" contracts that Zefram claims that all contracts have to resemble. I realize that legislatively, Zefram attempted to bring the ruleset in line with eir thinking in CFJ 1772, and I respect that intent. However, e botched it, left the notion implicitly in the Rules in some places (notably R101). This left it ambiguous whether our general agreement that we are all playing a game with Rules (the evidence that we are playing a game with Rules is evidenced by the fact that we discuss it and attempt formal actions at all) is included in the set of binding agreement that the rules talk about (again, the self-reference is specifically in the Nomic spirit, and is another place Agoran contracts might differ from real world ones. Though there might be a barbershop paradox in there somewhere). So now, we've highlighted both sides of that supreme ambiguity! Judge away, folks, judge away. -Goethe
