I'm confused about a couple of things... > Abstractly, the situation is as follows: > > * Just before time T, rule R had body B0 and revision number R0. > > * Document D alleges that, at time T, rule R had body B1 and revision > number R1. > > * At time T+Y, document D is ratified.
Was R0=R1 in this case? Shouldn't it be, unless document D was doubly-wrong? (I guess your judgement never claims they're *not* equal, but still I wonder if I'm missing something since you went to the trouble to separate them.) > Past interpretation has been in line with possibility #2. But were we > wrong all along about that? > > Relevant clauses from Rule 1551: > > When a document or statement (hereafter "document") is ratified, > rules to the contrary notwithstanding, the gamestate is 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; ... > > ... If no such modification is > possible, or multiple substantially distinct possible > modifications would be equally appropriate, the ratification > fails. > > Within the evaluation of this hypothetical, the ratified document need > not be /completely/ true, just "as true and accurate as possible". Past > practice thus amounts to implicitly interpreting this as "as true and > accurate as possible without violating the subsequent restrictions": > > * Within the evaluation of this hypothetical, at time T, rule R had > body B1, even if its revision number was still R0. > > * Thus, at time T+Y, rule R comes to have body B1, and revision > number (whatever it was just before time T+Y) + 1. Where do you get ((whatever it was just before time T+Y) + 1) from? I believe it's true, but it seems your reasoning is skipping a step, so I wanted to check my understanding. The "as true and as accurate as possible" condition is evaluated within the hypothetical. Within the hypothetical, there's nothing special about time T+Y. The magic happens at time T. I suppose there would be cascading consequences: within the hypothetical, the revision number is bumped by 1 at time T, and therefore every subsequent revision number would also be increased by 1, just to keep them sequential. Is that what you're saying? -- Falsifian
