Most honourable and esteemed Judge Chuck,
I submit to you that ctmf has broken rule 201. "201. Players shall alternate in clockwise order, taking one whole turn apiece..." By not completing his turn he is failing to participate, and for that crime our traditional and customary remedy is to purge him from the player roster.
As you well know, your honour, it is a longstanding tradition, backed by successive judgements, that non-participants are non-players. By waiting for non-players to vote ctmf is delaying our game and destroying our community.
Will you, as precedent and tradition demand, immediately purge ctmf and declare that flatluigi's turn has begun?
That's certainly an interesting way to end this turn/
I may or may not be back in the next twelve hours-or-so. As I've stated before, I'm wicked busy at school and balancing too many spinning plates.
Submitted by bonobo on Sat, 04/26/2008 - 11:32.
Bonobo's busy. Rule 305 requires us to wait. Too bad we didn't change that.
Furthermore, since we're being ridiculous, I suggest the judge rule:
For being obstructionist, AAA is stricken from the player list retroactively to the beginning of the turn. The vote is declared void from the point where the non-player voted and must be done again.
I'll vote against overruling.
For being obstructionist and for having a silly walk.
Oh, and I retracted my vote. I'm still thinking about what I want to vote. You have to wait for me.
Ok, I think I decided. Maybe not, though. Hm.
Don't the rules say judges can only rule on the questions put before them? Regardless of how silly this invocation is, it's beyond Chuck's power to punish AAA (unless someone invokes on that particular issue).
Yes, but no more ridiculous than say, claiming that a person who is here actively participating is not, er, participating.
Besides, AAA himself claimed a judge could do whatever they want unless overruled. So he could hardly complain.
Again, there is no tradition, only rules. There is a phrase, "game-custom and the spirit of the game," in 212, but this is yet another attempt by AAA to impose his fleeting historic judicial powers on events he has no say in.
And now ctmf is officially reconsidering his current vote, rendering this judgment invocation moot, if Chuck agrees.
p.s. I'm not being serious. I'm just playing with AAA. I do think we need a judgement on whether or not to remove bonobo from the player list. Unfortunately, this invocation didn't ask that question.
116. Whatever is not prohibited or regulated by a rule is permitted and unregulated, with the sole exception of changing the rules.
I declare the human known as AAA may never be a valid MeFiNo player.
While I'm at it, I grant myself 200 points, since nothing says that the voting process is the only way to gain them.
Nothing states I need a separate thread for another invocation, so I formally invoke judgment on whether AAA is obstructionist, and separately whether AAA has a silly walk. Awaiting your response, Chuck.
Don't forget the striking from the player list and revoting without him part. I kind of want to hear from AAA why Chuck couldn't do that.
I don't really want anyone stricken, so you'll have to invoke that one yourself.
I don't either. I just want to hear why it can't be done.
Judgment: ctmf is not expelled from the game.
Commentary: Aaron A. Aaronson has a peculiar notion of what "precedent," "tradition," and "custom," in this game are. We have a precedent of removing players who have not voted in a reasonable time from the game. There is no precedent for removing players who take a lengthy time for any other required action in the game.
There is a further precedent that Aaron A. Aaronson fails to note: that in order for a turn to proceed to the scoring stage, all players must vote on the proposal (which itself happens in one of two ways: either all people who were players at the start of a turn vote; or else a judge rules at a certain time that players who have not yet voted cease to be players, meaning that all remaining players have voted on the proposal).
Actually, that's not merely precedent, but is mandated by the rules. Rule 202: "One turn consists of two parts in this order: (1) proposing one rule-change and having it voted on, and (2) throwing one die once and adding the number of points on its face to one's score."
Since the voting stage of turn 308 has not yet ended, (at the time I write this, although that shall be rectified shortly), turn 308 has not yet proceeded to the scoring stage, and ctmf has acted correctly in not yet calculating his score. (Indeed, the Judge found it curious that it took players so long to invoke judgment on whether bonobo was to be expelled for not voting; the Judge was prepared to rule in the affirmative on such an invocation well before it was actually made, and if Aaron A. Aaronson was concerned about the pace of the game, he should have followed established precedent and sought to have bonobo expelled earlier, rather than try to expel ctmf for not performing a duty which ctmf was not required to perform at that time!)
Also, volkspider is correct to note that the Judge may rule only on the question placed before him. (Rule 212: "New Judges may, however, settle only those questions on which the players currently disagree," combined with the earlier provision that "Disagreement for the purposes of this rule may be created by the insistence of any player. This process is called invoking Judgment.") Combined, these two provisions of 212 make it quite clear that the judge may only rule on the specific issues raised in the invocation. The Judge is certainly free to comment on other issues, but such comments carry no more weight than any other players' comments.
Judgment (on jay's invocation): Aaron A. Aaronson is not obstructionist, and is not expelled from the game. The Judge explicitly declines to decide whether Aaron A. Aaronson has a silly walk.
Commentary: While AAA's actions may not have had the desired effect, they do not delay the game and thus cannot be called "obstructionist."
Rule 212 states that Judgment is invoked when "players disagree about the legality of a move or the interpretation or application of a rule" The question of whether AAA has a silly walk is not a question about the legality of a move, nor about the interpretation or application of a rule, and thus the Judge is not required to provide a ruling on that question.
Also, while it is legal to invoke an additional judgment within a thread created as an invocation of judgment (or indeed, within any thread), as jay has done, the Judge encourages players who choose to invoke judgment to create a separate thread for each invocation, so that the invocation is not overlooked within the comments, either by the Judge or by any other players.
Out-friggin-standing.
I applaud the wise and just judgement of our esteemed Judge Chuck. Thank our lucky stars that we have such wisdom to draw on, in the Institution of Judges and Judgement, to lead us through these difficult times.
And I am also most pleased to see that Judge Chuck has once again confirmed the precedent and game-custom of purging non-players from the player list, as we have done since the very beginning of this great experiment.
God bless you, Judge Chuck! All hail his radiant munificence!