On Thu, 2008-11-06 at 12:11 -0800, Kerim Aydin wrote: > On Thu, 6 Nov 2008, Alex Smith wrote: > > My point is: the filibuster rule is not a dependent action, according to > > rule 1728. Therefore, if it works at all, it works due to the ordinary > > English meaning of what it says. "with 2 supporting Senators" is with 2 > > supporting Senators, no firstclassness mentioned or implied anywhere... > > So we have a question of whether "supporting senators" is a reasonable > R754(a) grammatical map to "with N support (restricted to senators) > or whether some common definition of "supporting senators" must be > assumed. I'd strongly favor R754(a). In addition to that clause taking > precedence over the common language clause, game custom is strongly in > support of "with N support[suffix] [of] [subclass of dependent-action- > capable entities]" being a dependent action; for one thing several > contracts would break if we broke this link. > Contracts can't contain dependent actions, period. I treat contracts defining dependent actions as using an obvious abbreviation "this action works much the same way as the rules define dependent actions"; in such a case, varying the dependent action text works fine, as it's only an abbreviation anyway.
As for the rules, the rules are the rules, and less flexible than contracts. Also, the fact it says "with 2 supporting Senators" not "with 2 Senate Support" is further evidence that it works that way; "senate Support" would have been a much more sensible wording. I also seem to remember a proto a while back that would have meant that panels of 5 senators would have been what was required to break a filibuster; I can't find it, but if I remember correctly nobody was trying to add "first-class" to that. -- ais523
