juan via agora-discussion [2024-05-29 14:21]: I just realized that someone that registered on the 29th of February would raise questions about birthday announcements.
Yes, the current rule doesn't seem to address that. In the first definition, I think the only reasonable analysis is that, if an event does NOT happen anually, the phrase means nothing. It uses a definite article before a noun phrase without a referent. The second definition just implies that there's no occurence of a leap-day aniversary on non-leap-years. I agree with your readings of those definitions, but I don't think interpreting them like that conforms to the spirit of the rule. It would put the hypothetical player at an unfair disadvantage for Rule 2438, wherein ey could only receive a Magenta Ribbon every four years. Looking at what actual legal systems do for recognizing a leap-day baby's birthday, it can either be recognized as February 28 or March 1 in common years. I'm personally in favor of recognizing it as March 1, since the alternative puts the player's birthday a day earlier than it should be. February 29, when it exists, is the 60th day of the year. Non-leap years obviously still have a 60th day, it's just called "March 1st " in those years. And in both cases, February 28 is the 59th day of the year and is called "February 28" so recognizing February 29 on that day is just wrong. Then again, people born on or after March 1 do have eir birthday's position in the year shift by one day in leap years (though the name of that day remains the same...) This is just one of the many reasons programmers hate working with dates and times! To recap, I think it's important to make sure every player's birthday can be observed every year, so I would happily co-sponsor a proposal to amend Rule 2585 in this regard. I'm curious to hear other perspectives!
