Re: [s-d] [s-b] Asplosion!!!!!!

[Craig Daniel <teucer@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Ed Murphy <emurphy42@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> teucer wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Ed Murphy <emurphy42@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> I believe said PD is already correct.  Rule 5E36 does not require a
>>> Question or Statement to be delimited in any particular fashion.
>>
>> Your PD assumes that it is delimited in some fashion, despite the lack
>> of anything intended as a delimiter. Please state for me why you
>> believe "whether" is not part of the body of the consultation.
>
> Consider the two possibilities:
>
>  1) "whether the above created a Proposal."
>  2) "the above created a Proposal."
>
> 5E36 requires a Question or Statement.  Neither possibility is a very
> good Question, nor clearly better than the other; but possibility #2
> is clearly better than #1 as a Statement, flawed only in capitalization.

However, you are making the assumption that there is a boundary not
indicated by any delimiter. Because game actions must be unambiguous,
it must be possible to know where that boundary was. "I consult {on
whether the above created a Proposal.}" and "I consult on whether {the
above created a Proposal.}" are both well-formed, if clunky,
Consultations. Ditto "I consult on whether 'the above created a
Proposal.'" - nothing says the delimiters must be curly braces.

The fact that the first of those is not well-formed English doesn't
change this, any more than it prevents "I submit the following
Consultation: {On whether the above created a Proposal.}" or even "I
submit the following Tweak: {Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink
wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz.}" from being valid game actions that
happen to be at least a little bit nonsensical. There's even game
precedent for this; while now defunct, "lhret rhlhr" was a valid
contract that existed as a contract late in Era 4 but didn't do
anything due to being gibberish. (The new plain English clause means
that "I submit the following proposal: {.i la .MRfis. kelci tolbinxo}"
would have no actual effect on the gamestate if passed other than to
give the proposer points for its passage, but it is not meaningfully
different from the chumble-spuzz tweak or a vacuous proposal
containing only an assertion that it was cold yesterday.)

Unfortunately, without any indication of where the Supplicant intended
the Consultation to begin and end, there's no reason to leave out eir
signature and the word "whether", so the submission of the
Consultation, like that of the Proposal, was ambiguous. Those terms
don't do anything and are thus irrelevant to the effects of the
Proposal or the Consultation, but they still create ambiguity,
invalidating the game actions in question.

 - teucer
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