Initial Ruleset

FutureNomic Calls for Judgment

Where possible I included the message that invoked judgment and the judgment resulting from that invocation.

--greg

Index

Call for Judgment #1: Judge Streator presiding
Call for Judgment #2: Judge Riemer presiding
Call for Judgment #3: Judge Streator presiding
Call for Judgment #4: Judge Streator presiding
Call for Judgment #5: Judge Kirk presiding
Call for Judgment #6: Judge Greg presiding
Call for Judgment #7: Judge Riemer presiding

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Call for Judgment #6

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NOTE: Lengthy legal brief follows. Not for the weak of heart.

JUDGMENT. OCTOBER 2, 1996. JUDGE GREG RITTER PRESIDING.

SECTION 1: Legitimacy of the Judge
SECTION 2: The Scoring of Proposal 315
SECTION 3: The Infamous TWEB Disaster
SECTION 4: The Continuance of Play

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SECTION 1: Legitimacy of the Judge

I hereby declare myself to be the legitimate Judge, and therefore the
authority for ruling on the issues currently at hand in this most trying
time of confusion and disaster in our FutureNomic world.

There are two major *sets* of questions at hand. The first *set* of
questions at hand regard whether it is currently Riemer's turn or
Streator's. The second set of questions at hand regard the scoring of
Riemer's proposal 315. To determine who will settle
the second set of questions we must first determine whether Riemer's turn has officially ended (which will in turn determine who the Judge is).

Riemer's request for judgment on the scoring of his turn casts doubt upon
whether we can consider his turn complete. Since there is doubt as to
whether Riemer's turn has been completed, we cannot--without judgment--say
that the turn is conclusively comple ted which would mean that the turn is
*not* completed. Only if there is no doubt among the players that the turn
is complete or if judgment rules that the turn is complete, can a turn be
considered conclusively complete.

Since Riemer's turn is not complete, I am still Judge. I base this ruling
on the clause in Rule 212 that states "Unless a Judge is overruled, one
Judge settles all questions arising from the game until the next turn is
begun, including questions as to his
or her own legitimacy and jurisdiction as Judge."

NOTE: Before any overrulings of the following sections can occur, the
Players must collectively overrule SECTION 1 which is the judgment of my
own legitimacy as a Judge. If this section is not overruled, then the
following sections will stand as legitimat e judgements (subject to
separate overrulings themselves, of course) An overruling of the following
sections without a previous overruling of SECTION 1 will be an implicit
acceptance of the legitimacy of this Judge.

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SECTION 2: The Issue of Scoring on Proposal 315.

Riemer asked for judgment on the following issue:

> Ok, i hereby call for judgment to revert the game to the state before my
> proposal OR forget that proposal all together and pass the turn to the
next
> player.

To the best of the Judge's knowledge, the nomic remailer was functioning
properly until the demise of TWEB. The Judge received all Nomic mail from
the remailer and had no problem sending mail to the remailer. The Judge
has confirmed that at least three ot her players also received mail
properly: JP, who voted on deadline; Michael, who voted on deadline; and
Kirk, who did not cast a vote but said in an e-mail on Sept. 26 that he
had received e-mail up until the 18th which was in fact the last Nomic
mail sen t by the remailer before it burned. Therefore remailer failure is
NOT a factor in this ruling.

Internet access failure, however, IS a consideration. Both Riemer and
Taylor have claimed that they suffered from lack of internet access. The
rule governing point penalty for non-participation (Rule 307) does not
make an allowance for a judgment to overt urn the penalty (though it does
list lack of access as one of the reasons for going "on hold"). Rule 312
does make allowance for a judgment to determine whether a penalty is
applied for lack of access affecting non-participation, but this rule
doesn not d eal with the penalty for not casting votes. However, in the
spirit of the game it seems that the trend is not to penalize players for
internet access holes beyond their control.

Therefore, Taylor and Riemer will NOT be penalized for not casting votes.
Kirk and Streator WILL be penalized. Neither of them has claimed internet
access problems, and the remailer was functioning properly.

Kirk has confirmed in the Sep. 26 message that he received the last piece
of mail (on Sept. 18th) sent to the mailer before it burned, so he should
have been able to send in a vote--the remailer was functioning, he had
access, and the deadline was sent on Sept. 17th a day before Kirk said he
received the last mail. (Note: the last mail was just a result of nobody
*sending* mail to the remailer, not a remailer function.)

In an e-mail on Sept. 25 Streator said "For what its worth, I didn't vote
because I couldn't figure out where to vote to....". However, the
nomicvote@westjet.com remailer was functioning perfectly. It shouldn't
have been that difficulty to *try* it, OR, i f for some reason that
failed, to send it directly to me since I am known to be the vote tallier.
'Not knowing where to vote to' is not an acceptable excuse.

Kirk and Streator have had more than adequate time to claim internet
access problems, so barring being overruled by the total of the rest of
the players, this judgment will stand.

This directly impacts the question of whether we "erase" Riemer's turn
altogether. There were three legitimate votes cast (Greg, Mike, JP) and
two votes that were missed without reasonable excuse (Kirk, Streator). If
the remaining two voters who missed WI TH reasonable cause(Taylor, Riemer)
had both cast YES votes, it still would have not been enough to carry the
proposal. Since we have determined that even with the votes missed with
cause, there is no way the proposal could have passed, there is no reason
to strike the turn. The turn stands, Proposal 315 did not pass, and points
will be scored on the turn.

Giving Riemer a *very generous* benefit of the doubt we will assume he
would have voted YES on his own proposal. (For future reference, this
exception would not have been made if Riemer had just "forgot" to vote.
The only reason this exception is being ma de is because the vote was
missed "with reasonable cause", and this ruling should note be seen as
precedent or endorsement of replacing *any* missed vote on one's own
proposal with a YES vote.)

The judge's generosity does not extend to granting Riemer the 5 points for
being in the minority since (a)there was no actual vote and (b)if Riemer
always intended to vote YES on his proposal there was no reason to wait
until the end of the deadline; he could have cast his vote earlier.

However, there is no reason to assume that Taylor would have voted either
YES or NO, as Taylor did not participate in the debate on the Proposal, so
Taylor's vote will not be considered either

Therefore the scoring of the turn will be revised as follows. Riemer's
score will be computed by the equation ((315-290)*(1/7))-10) for a score
of -6 points. Kirk and Streator each lose 5 points for not voting. The
scoring currently stands as follows:
Riemer 6
Streator - 7
JP 22
Taylor - 5
Kirk 4
Michael 13
Greg 19

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SECTION 3: THE INFAMOUS TWEB DISASTER

Riemer also requested the following judgment:

> And while the Judge is in court, let him also rule about JP. I personally
> think that he should be considered to be on holiday so he will not loose any
> points.

Since the spirit of the game is not to penalize players for temporary lack
of internet access, JP will be granted a four-week "on hold" status that
may be reversed by a Judge if JP obtains alternate access in that period.
If at the end of that period JP h as not obtained alternate e-mail access,
a Judge must decide whether he will remain on the player roster.

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SECTION 4: THE CONTINUANCE OF PLAY

Since I have ruled that it is still Riemer's turn, Streator's turn has not
officially begun even though he has submitted a proposal.

In the interest of moving the game along, I hereby set a two-day time
limit for the submission of a request to overrule all or part of this
judgment. If no call for an overrule vote is submitted in that time,
Streator's turn will be considered to have off icially begun and it will
be too late to call for an overrule. (see Rule 212: "The Judge's Judgment
may be overruled only by a unanimous vote of the other players taken
before the next turn is begun.")

Do not consider debating these Judgments. You will get nowhere debating
them as the Judge has no intention of modifying his rulings. If you
disagree with the Judgments contained in this document, do not waste Nomic
time debating them. Simply call for an overrule--it is a much quicker way
to resolve whether the judgments will stand.

------------------------------------------------

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Call for Judgment #7

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Among others, Kirk has asked for a Judgment on rule proposal #320.

Since it regards judgment on Streators turn, i will be the Judge according
to the rules. Greg has asked me to be fair, that is, to bypass any personal
gain i might have in judging. One could even go that far to assume Greg is
questioning the integrity and honerability of this Judge. As argued in a
seperate mail, this will not be the case, this Judge's interests lie
elsewhere.

Also, any Judgment i make can be overruled if deemed necessary, so no harm
is done.

Back to Kirks request for judgment. He argued that Streator has made an
amendment to his rule proposal while leaving the deadline unchanged. This
has lead to a deadline of 14 hours, with time differences leading to a
deadline of minus 1 hour. This Judge was puzzled by this large
timedifference since normally one would expect a maximum difference of 12
hours. However, besides the nominal time difference, one has to take into
account the day-night rhythm which can easily extend the 12 hour maximum to
15 (14+1) hours as was the case here.

This Judge feels it important that enough time is given to allow
discussion. If an amendment to a current proposal leads to further
discussion, it could be necessary to extend the deadline. In this case,
Streator should have taken into account that

a. he made an amendment without changing the deadline;
b. discussion followed upon the amendment;
c. the unchanged deadline gave 14 hours of discussion time;
d. 14 hours became -1 hours for Kirk due to timedifferences;
e. discussion deadlines should give a reasonable amount of time.


Judgment:

Voting deadline for proposal #320 will be set on Thirsday 24:00 Streators
time. (day after Wednesday, i never known the difference between Thirsday
and Tuesday:-)
Any necessary score corrections shall be made by Greg.

Addendum
To prevent slowing down of the game by this Judgment, i also judge that the
game shall continu as planned. Therefore, JP is free to go ahead with his
proposal who, if understood correctly by his proposal, will have no problem
with this.

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