Daniel Lepage on 29 Jun 2003 19:54:01 -0000


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Re: [Spoon-business] Re: [spoon-discuss] Ow. 


On Saturday, June 28, 2003, at 11:44  PM, Glotmorf wrote:


And you call yourself a veteran.  Far as I know, a combination of the
Boilerplate and Standard Delimiter rules still serve to say that if
something is in curly brackets with nothing else saying what it is
it's a proposal, and if something is inside that proposal with curly
brackets with nothing else saying what it is it's a new rule to be
created.  That's how my old prose props used to work.
In fact, that recent prop of yours that you amended to include "Create 
a rule:" would have been fine in the first version.


And you call yourself a Patriarch. The rule you're trying to mention,
r216, Elimination of Boilerplate, allows us to propose rules without
declaring the 'create a rule' bit by simply making the prop the rule.
If your proposal were entitled __The Shotgun Rule__, and had the text
as its sole text, that would work. But the rule to be created must have 
the same name as the proposal to create it, so as it is, if you claim
that you're proposing a rule, then it's a rule entitled "Lock and Load" which for some reason has a delimited block entitled "The Shotgun Rule" 
in it.

The exact text of r216 is:
{{
To "propose a rule" is defined to mean making a proposal which contains 
one Action, which is to create a Rule. The Proposal is given the same
title as the Rule. The Proposal and the Rule need not be introduced
separately.

When proposing multiple rules, it is only necessary that the rules be
clearly delimited. The Standard Delimiters may serve this purpose.
}}
Also, I believe you need to declare that you're proposing a rule. As in, 

I propose a rule:
{{
<snip>
}}

Simply stating the prop does not technically even imply that you're
issuing a proposal; only that you feel the need to speak some delimited 
text on a public forum.

See r217 ( http://www.nomic.net/~g6//curver.php?rn=217 ) for more
details on delimiters and their use :)
And you call yourself an authority. You cite the rule I said works in combination with the Boilerplate rule, yet failed to use it in your counterargument.
The Standard Delimiters rule reads: "The character sequences '{{' and '}}' (without the single quotes) may be used in the text of any Action, Proposal, or Rule [[ yay recursion ]] to mark the beginning and end, respectively, of text that should be set apart, such as the text of a Proposal or Rule, or an amendment to either one. If it is not explicitly specified that these character sequences mean something else, they are considered to delimit text in that way." The rule explicitly references the text of a Proposal or Rule; granted "such as" is more inclusive than exclusive, but for that I cite the Default Case and say that since the rule doesn't state the validity of delimited text other than proposals or rules it is only the creation of proposals and rules via delimited text that is permitted.
Since I no longer Rule, I can't create rules upon my sayso; therefore, of the two explicitly mentioned possibilities, the only possibility for delimited text in a standalone manner is a proposal. Since there is onle one action inside the proposal, and that delimited and given a title (as per the third paragraph of the Standard Delimiters rule: "The character sequence '__' (again without the single quotes) delimits the title of a Rule or Proposal; the title begins after the first '__' and ends before the second one. The title is applied to whatever Rule or Proposal has most recently been introduced in the text of the message."), it conforms to the Boilerplate rule as being a proposal containing a single action being the creation of a rule. 

I disagree with two of your assumptions here.
First, you claim that the mention of Proposals and Rules in r217 implies that *only* proposals and rules are legitimate uses of the delimiters. However, r217 explicitly states that delimiters may be used to mark the beginning and end of "text that should be set apart"; the mention of Rules and Proposals is simply for clarification, and does not in any way imply that rules and proposals are the only forms of "text that should be set apart". Secondly, you assume that the existence of delimiters is enough to imply an intent to create something with the delimited text; r217 in no way says or implies this. It merely permits you to use the brackets to mark a block of text. You could be suggesting the text of a new rule you wish somebody else to propose; you could be quoting a rule from a different game; you could simply be stating some random text that you think should be set apart. Nothing in your message in any way implies that you intend to create anything. Likewise, even if you had declared that you were making a proposal, the existence of delimiters within your proposal cannot be construed to indicate that you wish to create a rule. You have nowhere indicated that you wish to create anything; in fact, you never even specified that the text inside was an action. While we can perhaps assume that it is meant to be a change to the gamestate, as proposals are simply lists of such changes, you haven't indicated what the change should be. Is the delimited block intended to create a new rule? A new proposal? A new section of an existing rule? A new text to replace that of an old rule? The fact that the act of "proposing a rule" is defined as making a proposal with a single action that creates a new rule in no way indicates that you did that, unless you state that that's the action you're doing. Otherwise, we have no reason to believe you've taken any action at all.
Oh, and BTW, you can't claim that the definition of '__' helps you at all, because you didn't use the standard title delimiters; you used single underscores instead. They aren't defined to do anything. 


Wasn't there an old CFI to this effect?


Not that I can see.

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