spoon-business: CFJ 219 (The Clock) Judgement

[Jörg Rathlev <joerg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The CFJ to be judged was:

> STATEMENT 1:
> The clock should be updated by the Administrator to read the appropriate
> nweek and nday at time of judgement on this statement, as if the clock
> had read nweek 4, nday 0 at 00:00:00 UTC at the end of nweek 3.
>
> STATEMENT 2:
> If Statement 1 is ruled False or Undecided, then Proposal 158 should be
> repealed in toto.

{{

I judge the statement to be false, because:

- The Clock is not an entity used to display time, it is an entity
  that defines time for the purpose of this game,

- The Clock is zero-based, therefore the nweek that is displayed as
  "nweek 3" by The Clock is the fourth nweek of this game, and

- counting of nweeks was not zero-based before the passage of proposal
  158/1, resulting in "nweek 2" being called "nweek 3" at that time.


Analysis:

This analysis shall not have the force of law.

I should note that I am not entirely sure if rule 126/1 permits a CFJ
to contain more than a single statement, I have therefore interpreted
the statements of the CFJ as a single statement that reads: "The clock
should be updated by the Administrator to read the appropriate nweek
and nday at time of judgement on this statement, as if the clock had
read nweek 4, nday 0 at 00:00:00 UTC at the end of nweek 3. If this is
false or cannot be decided, then Proposal 158 should be repealed in
toto."

In my judgement, I have considered Fenrir's opinion that "nweek 3" is
just the name that we give to an nweek, and it is possible to give the
same name to two different nweeks. This would imply that The Clock is
not a definition of time, but rather an entity used to display the
time. However, as turning The Clock On or Off influences the game, The
Clock is an entity that defines time. Time is displayed by displaying
the current value of The Clock (see rule 214/0).

The Clock is defined to be zero-based for seconds, minutes and hours
by being based on UTC, which displays the first second/minute/hour as
"00" rather than "01". Furthermore, The Clock is defined by rule 3/2
to be zero-based for ndays ("in which case [the number of ndays] shall
become equal to 0"). It therefore makes sense to assume that The Clock
is zero-based for nweeks as well, which means that "nweek 3" is the
fourth nweek of the game.

Days and Nweeks as they used to be defined by rule 3/0 before the
passage of proposal 158/1 were not defined by that rule to be
zero-based, and game practice before the passage of proposal 158/1
indicates that the first nweek of the game was called "nweek 1" at
that time, not "nweek 0".

Players who prefer a non-zero-based counting of nweeks may wish to
make a proposal to change the counting, however, such players are
advised to be careful in changing The Clock since by doing so, they
will be changing time itself.

}}


Joerg