Re: spoon-business: RFJ 31 ruling and a proposal

[Joel Uckelman <uckelman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoth Joerg:
>
> Note that currently it is illegal to vote by submitting the votes to a =
> non-public forum (such votes are private votes since the voting doesn't =
> happen in a public forum). While the actual votes are legal, and should =
> be counted, it violates R226/0 because the votes are revealed before the =
> end of the voting period.

Hmm. I can't say that I agree with this, and I think it might be a good 
idea to get a Judgment on it. So, I request Judgment on the following:

Statement:

R226/0 does not prohibit voting in private fora.

Analysis:

Here's the text of R226/0:

"A Player may vote privately if e so desires by notifying the 
Administrator. Votes cast privately shall not be revealed until voting 
ends."

1. It seems to me that the second sentence implicitly apples to the Admin, 
and not anyone else.

2. The second instance of "privately" in the Rule could be read in the 
usual, rather than the technical, in-game sense.

3. There is clearly no prohibition against posting one's own votes to a 
public forum---and it seems to happen quite a lot. That said, it can be 
noted that there is no blanket prohibition on revealing votes prior to the 
close of voting.

4. For non-revelation to be possible, someone must lack the unrevealed 
knowledge. For instance, it would be impossible for me to avoid revealing 
to anyone on the list that 1 + 1 = 2, because everyone already knows that. 
Similarly, when someone votes to the discussion list, there is afterward no 
one on the list to whom their votes could yet be revealed. So, if it is 
granted that the sending of votes to the discussion list is not covered by 
the non-revelation clause in R226/0, then there could not possibly be any 
violation of the Rule in that case. I contend that voting to the discussion 
list does not constitute vote revelation, as conveying one's votes in 
private fora---of which the discussion list clearly is one---is explicitly 
allowed by the first sentence of R226/0. So, either R226 is 
self-contradictory, or poorly written. I am inclined to go with the latter.

----
end of analysis
----

So, I would suggest a much simpler change to R226:

"A Player may vote privately if e so desires by conveying eir votes to the 
Administrator. Until such time as voting ends, the Administrator is 
prohibited from revealing votes cast in this fashion."

As it stands, I probably won't vote for Joerg's changes, which seem to me 
overly complex.

-- 
J.