spoon-business: CFJ 660 Judgement - False

["Gavin Doig" <gmd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

CFJ 660
Statement: Props. 650, 651, 652 and 653 were made using text quoted from comments in other public forum msgs. Therefore they have no effect, even if they pass in voting. 
Judgement: False
Analysis:
First, let me note that this is trivially false, as even if they don't do anything to the rules they'll still have an effect on Wonko's score.

However, treating "effect" as "effect on the rules", we can address the real issue - is Wonko allowed to quote from commented text to circumvent the entropy restrictions?

Glotmorf's argument hinges on rule 8, which states "Comment text shall not have the force of Rule". He then makes 2 claims:
1. Because Wonko's proosals quote from a comment, they therefore inherit the "shall not" provision of Rule 8.
2. The "shall not" provision of R8 applies to future use of the comment text, not just the current use.

1. R8 is explicit that comment text is text in [[]]s. Since Wonko's proosals did not appear in [[]]s, they were not comments, and so R8 does not apply to them. The only way they could conceivably be covered by R8 would be if point 2 were true.

2. Consider the situation where a rule contains the text "[[Players may not win.]] When a player wins, remove this sentence and all instances of '[' and ']' from this rule." (with apologies to Rob). I would expect that, once the [[]]s are removed, the first sentence of that rule would prevent players from winning. Glotmorf's interpretation would lead us to expect otherwise (as it would be the same text that had previously been comment text, not just a quote of it). This would lead to the absurd situation of having "invisible" comments.
I submit that this difference arises because Glotmorf views the "shall" of R8 in the sense of "Something that will take place or exist in the future: We shall arrive tomorrow." (www.dictionary.com/search?q=shall). In fact, R8 uses "shall" in the (admittedly legalistic and archaic) "To have to; must" sense ("Congress shall make no law..."). That is, the "shall not" is prohibitive, not predictive, and once the comment brackets are removed from the comment (by removing them from the original instance or by quoting the original instance) Rule 8 no longer applies, and the ex-comment text can have the force of law. This interpretation is consistent with expectation, and with the letter and spirit of rule 8.

So this CFJ is False regardless of the interpretation of the statement.

The Reality Police.
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