Also, I wrote some text arguing that D. Margaux is correct about the
document self-ratifying itself into being legal. It didn't end up
being relevant to my judgement, but I've already written it, so I
might as well publish it. (It's similar to the first draft of this
section, but I added two paragraphs about interpreting Rule 2143.)
----
5. The timeline hypothesized by rule 1551
=========================================
When D. Margaux's reports self-ratified, according to Rule 1551, the
gamestate was "modified to what it would be if, at the time the ratified
document was published, the gamestate had been minimally modified to
make the ratified document as true and accurate as possible".
To understand how Rule 1551 modified the gamestate, the first step is to
understand the minimal modification that is hypothetically applied at
the time the document was published. This minimal modification is clear:
all switches created directly by the Politics and Spaaace Rules are
modified to be at their default values, and all entities and switches
created by the Clork or Astronomor according to those respective Rules
are removed so that they do not exist in the minimally modified
gamestate.
Having understood the hypothetical minimal modification, the next step
is to understand what would have happened had that minimal modification
been made when the reports were published.
Rule 2143 says "A person SHALL NOT publish information that is
inaccurate or misleading ... within a document purporting to be part of
any person or office's weekly or monthly report". In this hypothetical
timeline, the information in the document was false up until it was
published, and true from the time it was published onward. This leaves
it somewhat hard to determine whether D. Margaux published false
information, since the act of publication presumably refers to the time
the document was published.
With nothing more concrete to guide us, I think it's sensible to think
of D. Margaux's act of publishing the documents in this hypothetical
timeline as being performative: the act of publishing caused the
gamestate to be modified to make the documents true from that moment
onward. This is similar to the way many actions are performed in Agora:
for example, a player sends a mesage saying e expunges one blot, and it
is thereby true. It is not exactly the same thing, since in the case of
actions, one typically expresses them using a verb ("I expunge"),
whereas the documents assert that facts are true ("There are no
currently existing entities..."). But in the absense of any other way to
augment our understanding of the rules, Rule 217 tells us to augment the
rules by following this game custom.
Having established that, here is the hypothetical timeline:
* D. Margaux publishes correct Astronomor and Clork reports.
* omd Points eir Finger at D. Margaux for publishing inaccurate
information in those reports.
* D. Margaux authorizes Aris to act on eir behalf for the investigation.
* Aris attempts to impose the Cold Hand of Justice, but the attempt is
INEFFECTIVE because D. Margaux did not violate the rules.
In this hypothetical timeline, the appropriate judgement of CFJ 3726
would be FALSE, since Aris's attempted imposition was INEFFECTIVE, and
the appropriate judgement of CFJ 3727 would be FALSE as well, since D.
Margaux did not gain any blots after the 2019-05-20 referee report,
which self-ratified before CFJ 3727 was called.
