On Wed, 11 Feb 2009, Alex Smith wrote: > Also, I don't think clamping down on working scams is in the best > interests of the game.
IMO, the best interests of the game in a scam are, when all else is balanced, whether admitting the loophole will cause far more outstanding procedural problems (e.g. recalculating gamestate by redefining some deeply-embedded term) than denying it, or whether it would lead to dangerously absurd results in the future exegesis of the Rules (e.g. redefinition of "minor" punishment as "exiled for 100 years"). The granting of a dictatorship, on its own, does not a priori stand against the interests of the game, nor should it. Sometimes denying the loophole would do more damage in those terms than admitting a resulting dictatorship. There's at least one scam in the past that I argued against, and won the argument, and now regret doing so in the interests of the game. It *is*, however, in the best interests of the game to argue vociferously about the loophole prior to the decision being made :). -Goethe
