On Sat, 9 Sep 2017, Aris Merchant wrote:
> > So, in the balance of legislative and common law, I'd put conditionals
> > on the common law side. Probably, among everything else that's common
> > law, this is the one I would most want to keep there.
> >
> > -G.
>
> I don't object to having it be common law, but every time I add a game
> mechanic, like when I made it possible to add conditionals to
> agencies, someone always tells me I need to paradox proof it. [1]
> Agoran common law only works if everyone agrees to believe in it, and
> from experience they don't seem to on this one.
I see your point, let's see if we can meet halfway!
So a few specific comments:
- It doesn't seem to explicitly permit or prohibit conditional
actions in general. Does adding this rule imply that all "by announcement"
actions can be done conditionally if the conditions are clear
enough, or is it "when other rules say something CAN be done
conditionally, then these are the standards we apply."
You weakly imply that "by anouncement conditionals" are subject
to a SHALL NOT, but nowhere has that been permitted, and in fact,
a strict textual reading of "by announcement" would forbid
conditionals ("unambiguously and clearly specifying the action").
This works ok when it's common law, we shrug and say "this
is clear enough", but if you put it in a rule, then I'd say
"R478 conflicts with this rule, R478 wins, no conditional by
announcements allowed".
This is not hard to fix, rather than say what is "unclear", you
need to define positively: "An attempt to perform a by announcement
action conditionally is unambigousuly specified [i.e. for the
purposes of R478] if and only if it is extricable".
This is how it works for ballots: "option [...] is clearly
specified if and only if [the conditions are clear]" and "clearly
specified" is a callback to the R683(4) requirement to "clearly"
identify a valid vote. So basically you re-defined "clearly"
to include clear conditionals.
- Timing. Be specific that the conditional must be extricable
at the time of the posting (rather than when a judge later
interprets it), if that's your intent. So to the "if and only
if it is extricable", add "at the time the action is attempted"
(or other if you really want a different option).
- I think my big worry is loops. Conditionals imply loops
("I do X, Y, Z, then repeat 100 times"). Loops are frequently
used and frequently a source of abuse, even when the intent is
clear and obvious. I think you should have some specific
mention that long loops may fit in the "unreasonable effort"
category. We don't want to hard-code exact # of loops (this is
why common law is great here), so here's a place where we might
explicitly say "determining unreasonable effort is at the
discretion of a judge".
In fact, this last point may swing the balance for me; if we
*explitly* say that "a judge can declare that a loop is too
long", it has an extra preventative effect on stopping people
from trying it - that would be a good result!
Hope this helps...
-G.
