Judge’s arguments: Ok, I’m going to start with a brief summary. Aranea has been ADoP for a long time. Recently eir report has been incorrect. Specifically, e has reported the wrong date for a player's assumption of an office, a fairly minor mistake. The correctness (or lack thereof) of the documents, authored by aranea, which purport to be reports does not appear to be in question.
The primary issue here seems to be the question of whether a report has to be entirely correct to be valid. Reading the mere text of the rules is unhelpful, as it doesn't really speak one way or the other. The only clue appears to be self ratification. Self-ratification (R2201/6) states that a document purporting to be a report self-ratifies, if the rules say it does. Other rules (R2162/6) state that reports of switches self-ratify. The only way to block this ratification is a doubt, (explicit public challenge) made within one week of publication, which this CFJ constitutes. For the record, officeholder is a switch tracked by the ADoP (R1006/38). Whether changes in that switch (also tracked by the ADoP) are self-ratifying is another question, and I’m not going to answer it. Alexis seems not to think so and no one seems to have challenged em on the issue, which means I’ll rule on the actual arguments. Alexis argues that in order to be valid a report must be wholly and completely accurate. E cites as evidence for this the various instances in which the rules use the phrasing “a document purporting to be a report”. However, this merely implies that a document can claim to be a report without being one, not that there is any mechanism for this to happen. I find one record of a case on this, CFJ 2392, which ruled that deliberately inaccurate reports were invalid. I respect that judgement on the grounds of stare decisis, and it is affirmed. The rules may have changed since then, but the principle stands. However, it doesn't really help that much in this case, as it left the issue of accidentally inaccurate for a future CFJ (guess that means me). I’m going to get a bit sidetracked here. If alexis’s principle succeeded, there is general agreement that eir scam still would have failed, as e listed emself as ADoP. While it is theoretically possible that the “When” in rule 2160 means before, there is evidence against this. As shown by aranea in eir arguments, the rules don’t seem to use “when” in this fashion, and some parts of R2160 imply that it isn't intended to be interpreted that way. Game practice and custom seem to use it as meaning “after”. Certainly it doesn't mean “during”, as that would go against the principle of isolation, and generally risk messing everything up. Since game custom and practice, as well as the best interests of the game, show that it should be interpreted as meaning “after”, that is how it is to be interpreted. So ordered and all that. (I should mention that I’m a bit biased, or perhaps illogical here. I tend to think of it as “whoever takes the job gets the job” which suggest “after” over “before”.) (This may be a bit beyond the scope of this CFJ, but I’m sick and tired of people using that as an excuse to not decide something.) However, eir principle was invalid. Game custom is pretty clear on this matter. For an example look at CFJ 2877, where it was found that a report was incorrect, suggesting that a report does not have to be completely accurate. Anyone is free to publish a CoE, or to try to punish an officer for violating R2143’s SHALL NOT. In the meantime, while there will never be a bright line for this, the standard is that the purported report has to exhibit gross sloppiness and negligence, equivalent in severity to lying in the report or not publishing it. Aranea did not violate this standard, as shown by the minor nature of this error, and the fact that nobody noticed till now. Having duly considered the arguments of all sides and etc. etc. etc., I hereby judge this CFJ TRUE. For greater certainty, I hereby decree that any document(s) alleging to be produced by the ADoP since the start of this scam, and not published by the actual ADoP, aranea, is(are) null and void, and CANNOT self-ratify. This expressly includes reports, as well as any other game action restricted to the ADoP. -Aris
