1121

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                               CFJ 1121

  The Proposal known as "3830" (see below) was in fact distributed, but
  it has not received a number as required by Rule 109.

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Called by:           Vlad

Judge:               elJefe
Judgement:           FALSE

Judge selection:

Eligible:            Crito, elJefe, Michael, Morendil
                    

Not eligible:
Caller:              Vlad
Barred:              Chuck, General Chaos
Had their turn:      Ørjan, Macross, Blob, General Chaos, Murphy, Peekee,
                     Vlad, Kolja A., Andre
Already served:      -
Defaulted:           -
By request:          -
On Hold:             Ørjan

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History:

  Called by Vlad:                          Mon, 08 Feb 1999 18:51:00 -0600
  Assigned to elJefe:                      Tue, 09 Feb 1999 18:35:43 +1100
  Judged FALSE by elJefe:                  Wed, 10 Feb 1999 00:45:08 -0500
  Judgement published:                     as of this message

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Caller's Arguments:

I use the term "3830" to denote the Proposal G. Chaos tried to
distribute with Proposals 3831 and 3832 in his message of 7 Feb., which
he marked with the designation 3830, entitled "The Grand Agoran
Tournament". This message fit all the requirements for distribution,
except that of having been given an official number as required by 109.
However, by 1770, such omission does not affect the legality of the
Proposal's distribution. Therefore, Proposal "3830" was distributed, but
without a number as required by 109 (I will hereafter refer to this as
the "109 number".

Now, the second issue, is whether "3830" does currently have a 109
number, namely, 3833. G. Chaos is correct that an Officer does not have
to issue a COE to correct his own report; by CFJ 919 any correction is
to be considered a COE and a response. The question is, has G. Chaos
issued such a correction? No. He proceeded to redistribute Proposal
"3830" a second time, giving this second issue the number of 3833.
Nowhere in the redistribution did he indicate that this was a correction
of his previous message. Can we consider this an implicit corection? No.
The correction required was the assignment of a 109 number to the
already distributed Proposal "3830". However, G. Chaos' messages to the
PF indicate that he felt "3830" had in fact not been distributed at all,
and that 3833 was a seperate distribution. In fact, now we know that it
was the second distribution of the Proposal. So the correction, viz. the
assignment of a 109 number to "3830", has never occurred.

I also request the Judge issue an Order to Compel to General Chaos
requiring him to assign Proposal "3830" a number as required by Rule
109.

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Judge's Arguments:

I judge FALSE.  I find that the Proposal was indeed distributed as the
Statement suggests, but at the time the CFJ was called it had been given
a number, namely 3833.

This judgement is based on the following findings, some of which relate
to Caller's argument.

1. The Promotor attempted to distribute Vlad's proposal "The Grand
Agoran Tournament" at two separate times on 08 Feb 1999 (GMT), namely at
01:22:57 GMT ("OFF: Proposals 3830-3832") and at 02:03:24 GMT ("OFF:
Proposal 3833")

Note that this does not mean that there are two Proposals; under 1483
there was no creation of any new Proposal with the same text.

2. At the time of the first message, the Promotor attempted to give the
number 3830 to the Proposal, but this number had already been used
before, and the attempted assignment failed as contrary to Rule 109.

By Rule 1770, the "legal effects" of distribution took place anyway.
These include the start of the Voting Period on the unnumbered Proposal
(Rule 693) and its removal from the Proposal Queue (Rule 1770).

3. Even though the Promotor failed to follow Rule 109 at the time of
distribution, this does not deprive a later assignment of a number to
the unnumbered Proposal from having effect.

Game Custom and (I believe) earlier Judgements have held that a Rule
which prescribes a Player action "at" a particular time does not thereby
prevent an omitted action from being performed at a later time (though
other Rules may explicitly prevent it). Indeed, the Caller is assuming
this in eir request for an order to compel such an action.

4. The caller argues that the Promotor did not give the number 3833 to
the Proposal, but to the "second issue" of the Proposal. This is wrong:
numbers are given to Proposals, not to 'issues' of Proposals. As noted,
there are not two Proposals under discussion but only one.

5. The second message gives evidence that sometime after 01:22:57 GMT
and no later than 02:03:24 GMT, the Promotor attempted to give number
3833 to the Proposal. The Promotor's mistaken belief about the status of
the Proposal does not affect the assignment of the number.

6. Rule 109 requires the number to be the least integer greater than the
numbers previously assigned.  After the first message, 3831 and 3832 had
already been assigned. So 3833 is the correct number, and the attempt to
give it to the Proposal was successful.

DICTUM: With regards to Vlad's vote:  reasonable (if slightly
inattentive) people could be confused about which Proposal was meant by
"Proposal 3830" in the context in which Vlad attempted to vote. Thus I
could support a judgement that Vlad's attempt to vote was ambiguous.

Regards, 
elJefe, J.

==========================================================================
Documentation attached by Caller:

Text of Rule 109:
Rule 109/3 (Power=2)
Proposal Numbers

      At the time e distributes it, the Promotor shall give each
      Proposal a Number for reference.  The Number of a Proposal shall
      be the least integer greater than all other Numbers previously
      assigned to a Proposal (including numbers assigned to Proposals
      later determined to have been incorrectly submitted), or 301,
      whichever is greater.

@@@@@@@

Text of Rule 1770:
Rule 1770/2 (Power=1)
Distributing Proposals

      Each week, the Promotor shall distribute a batch of Proposals.
      These are the only Proposals e is allowed to distribute that
      week.

      If the number of Proposals in the Proposal Queue with a
      Priority greater than zero is less than or equal to the Batch
      Size, then the batch shall consist of all such Proposals.

      If the number of Proposals in the Proposal Queue is greater
      than the Batch Size, then the batch shall consist of those
      Proposals in the Queue with the highest Priority such that the
      number of Proposals distributed is equal to the Batch Size.

      Once a Proposal is distributed, it is removed from the Proposal
      Queue.

      The Promotor shall distribute each proposal in the batch to the
      Public Forum, accompanied by its Number and the identity of
      its Proposing Entity.

      The failure of the Promotor to distribute any of the above
      accompaniments with a Proposal does not deprive the
      distribution of the Proposal of any legal effect.

      A Proposal is only considered to be legally distributed if it
      is explicitly marked as such. The Promotor is permitted to
      publish the text of undistributed Proposals without necessarily
      distributing them.

@@@@@@@

Distribution of "3830", 3831, and 3832 (text of Proposals not
included):
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 20:22:57 -0500
From: Scott Goehring scot-@poverty.bloomington.in.us
Reply-To: agora-discussio-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au
To: agora-officia-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au
Subject: OFF: Proposals 3830-3832

>From the Office of the Promotor:

                       PROPOSALS 3830 THRU 3832

There are three proposals distributed as of this report, numbered from
3830 to 3832.  The Voting Periods of these Proposals commence as of
this message and end seven days later unless otherwise noted.  Voting
on these Proposals will cost 1.2 VTs.

======================================================================

No.  Proposer           AI    Name
3830 Vlad               1     The Grand Agoran Tournament
3831 Steve              2     Repeal Impeachment
3832 General Chaos      3     Summary Adoption

======================================================================

@@@@@@@

Second distribution of my Proposal (text of Proposal trimmed):
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 21:03:24 -0500
From: Scott Goehring scot-@poverty.bloomington.in.us
Reply-To: agora-discussio-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au
To: agora-officia-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au
Subject: OFF: Proposal 3833

>From the Office of the Promotor:

There is one proposal distributed as of this report, numbered 3833.
The Voting Period of this Proposal commences as of this message and
ends seven days later unless otherwise noted.  Voting on this Proposal
will cost 1.2 VTs.

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No.  Proposer           AI    Name
3833 Vlad               1     The Grand Agoran Tournament

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@@@@@@@

G. Chaos' explanation of his reissue of my Proposal:

Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 20:58:21 -0500
From: Scott Goehring scot-@poverty.bloomington.in.us
Reply-To: agora-discussio-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au
To: agora-busines-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au
Subject: BUS: Oops, again

Upon reviewing the Rules, it appears to me to appear that Vlad's
Proposal has not yet been distributed, and the other two have.
While the Rules require that I distribute only the Proposals in the
Batch, it does not say that I have to distribute them all at one
time.  Therefore, I will distribute Vlad's Proposal separately as
Proposal 3833 in a few minutes.  My apologies for the confusion.

(It also says that I don't have to distribute the Proposals in the
batch in any particular order.  Hm.)

@@@@@@@

Annotation to Rule 1431, defining COEs:
[CFJ 919: A PF message correcting an earlier PF message by the
 same player constitutes both a COE and the Response.]

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