On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Kerim Aydin <[email protected]> wrote: > It can't take effect until you've (a) initiated the matter and > (b) voted upon it to adopt it. The question is, what information is > sufficient to identify the "matter" at hand? (e.g. identify the "proposal") > A proposal ID is not the proposal; it works only as long as the ID number > is an unambiguous reference to "something" (e.g. a text). When the > matter is initiated, it must indicate the something, and I would argue > that that's a clear reference to a particular text. Once that reference > is made, look for example at R683(b). When I voted for the proposal, I > was not clearly identifying an ID container regardless of its contents, > I was voting (e.g. "clearly identifying") a particular set of contents. > There's also the question of what is resolved by the vote collector.
But this goes back to the immutability argument. While you claim that a 'proposal' is really an ID number attached to some text, I'm arguing that a proposal is a specific object, with attributes such as adoption index and text, like a rule or contract. The text of a proposal can be changed without making it a different proposal, just as a contract remains the same contract even if amended. The matter of whether to adopt a certain proposal, like the matter of whether to make a certain contract a contest, remains relevant to the same proposal or the same contract even if it's amended. Thus 'whether to adopt proposal NNNN' is not just a short form for 'whether to create a new Power=2 Rule reading "blaz" and repeal Rule 1234'; it's what it says on its face, whether to adopt the object known in the gamestate as proposal NNNN, which is a document for which the gamestate tracks a text and an adoption index.
