Author Topic: Posts that do not provide evidence  (Read 31899 times)

De-Legro

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #30: November 07, 2013, 03:24:53 AM »
This is ludacris. There is no arguing about a fact. Does the rule say that a strategic secession is based off intent? Yes, thus it is. Thats a fact, not an opinion or an argument.  You can't just exclude parts of a rule because you feel like it. "Well the rule stated you can not do x, but I excluded the not part because I don't like that so now I can do x" is obviously illogical and what is being stated in a different by seemingly all those who wish for the secession to be punished in some way or another already. As well, last I checked its innocent until proven guilty so Riombara does not need to prove its innocence, those who are prosecuting Riombara/the specific player need to prove guilt. (The magistrates should be somewhat prosecutors though as they are more or less the detectives as well since regulars players are the equal of citizens, not having the power to investigate.)

Penchant that is MY reading of the rules as well. I was answering in regards to using the football analogy that boiled down to, well in football the handball rule does not take into account intent, thus NO rules in things completely unrelated to football must take intent into account. If intent wasn't important in the world, we wouldn't have man slaughter everything would be judges as murder, nor would we need to prove pre meditation. Obviously there are rules were we are meant to judge intent, I believe the wording of this rule implies this is one of them. I'm willing to be wrong, though I have spoken English my entire life it is not my first language nor the language I predominately think in.
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Penchant

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #31: November 07, 2013, 03:42:38 AM »

If he intended to secede knowing that something would result, then he intended whatever the foreseeable consequences of his action were.
While it seems like you are attempting to troll, in case its simply a lack of understanding I will prove that false through a counterexample: If I get in a car I know it ups my risk for injury and death but I that is not my intention. My intention is to get somewhere faster.

And if you are unaware, a counterexample proves an implication false.
Penchant that is MY reading of the rules as well. I was answering in regards to using the football analogy that boiled down to, well in football the handball rule does not take into account intent, thus NO rules in things completely unrelated to football must take intent into account. If intent wasn't important in the world, we wouldn't have man slaughter everything would be judges as murder, nor would we need to prove pre meditation. Obviously there are rules were we are meant to judge intent, I believe the wording of this rule implies this is one of them. I'm willing to be wrong, though I have spoken English my entire life it is not my first language nor the language I predominately think in.
Two things,

First, my apologies on the misunderstanding as it seemed to me, you were saying you agreed with the quoted user.

Second, it was not an attack upon the post I seemed to misunderstand, but all those arguing that when intent is stated as being a part of the definition that it can be ignored.
I just briefly flipped through past Magistrate rulings.

As best I can tell, the Magistrates have not ruled on strategic secessions yet.

I would caution either side against saying the rule IS about either outcomes or intents. Say it has been interpreted that way, fine. But the rule IS about whatever the Magistrates say it is about, unless Tom decides to intervene.

Most of the arguments up to this point do not seem very germaine. The core debate here is how to interpret the text of the rule. Specifically, we should be arguing about the phrase "in order to circumvent." Does that imply "With the psychological intent and expectation of circumventing?" or "With the effect of circumventing?"

Once that debate is resolved, we can argue about efficacy: can we police intent? How far removed must the effect be, or how incidental? But until we settle, based on the text itself, the intent/outcomes question, the rest is moot.

Also, while Tom is free to intervene, unless and until Tom does intervene, we cannot base any rulings on how frequently or not he has chosen to respond to accusations. We haven't usually gotten detailed explanations and justifications of those decisions, so we really can't reason from them. And, to reiterate, the Magistrates are not inheritors of a pre-existing set of rules. Tom's previous decisions and Titan decisions were not always consistent, not widely understood, not regularly recorded, and do not constitute a basis of principles or rules to which we can reliably appeal. The only exceptions are in stated rules like the IRs and Social Contract, and if Tom decides to speak on this case specifically.

So, someone convince me that "in order to circumvent" means something other than intent.
Even if somehow "in order to circumvent" could be interpreted in such a way that intent does not matter, interpretation does not matter when the one who wrote the rule has stated the reasoning for the wording, which is that intent matters. Any arguing of that simply seems like rules lawyering, something Tom is against and obviously wouldn't approve of.

Intent of the rule should be considered when deciding rules lawyering though because of cases like no merger rule that was brought up and rules lawyering was said to be done but Tom proved after explicitly repeating his intent after it was already stated several times in the thread. Running to Tom to decide on intent of the rule when it is easy enough to deduce shouldn't be done IMO. In this case, given that the wording included circumventing, it seems obvious the intent of the rule is to prevent those who attempt to "win" battlemaster to not be able to do so through unfair means.
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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #32: November 07, 2013, 04:11:46 AM »
We know he intended to secede with the full knowledge that a strategic advantage would result from his action. No part of this was a surprise to him or a random occurrence. You guys keep hemming and hawing about the player's intent as if there could be any doubt about it.


While it seems like you are attempting to troll, in case its simply a lack of understanding I will prove that false through a counterexample: If I get in a car I know it ups my risk for injury and death but I that is not my intention. My intention is to get somewhere faster.

And if you are unaware, a counterexample proves an implication false.


You might also look up the definition of false analogy. Getting injured in a car accident is merely a risk that you try to avoid. The strategic advantage here is a foreseeable consequence of seceding and a relative certainty. But if you're driving your car and you see someone standing in the middle of the road, and you don't make any attempt to avoid him, then you intended to run him over. If you point a loaded gun at someone and pull the trigger, then you intended to shoot him. You're not excused just because the bullet passed through him and hit a deer.

Geronus

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #33: November 07, 2013, 04:29:52 AM »
It actually seems pointless to have this rule if the only time it would ever be invoked is if someone openly and explicitly seceded a city in order to start recruiting somewhere closer to the front, and did so in such a way that you could prove their intent. If you make such a rule, it will never need to be enforced unless someone didn't bother to read the rules in the first place. People who did read the rules would merely ensure that they had some other plausible reason to secede a city in order to accomplish the same damn thing so they can point to their story and say, "See? I had an acceptable reason for doing this, so the rule does not apply." The problem is especially acute since every single reason that isn't explicitly "because it will help me win" is seemingly permissible if the rule is so narrowly interpreted.

I mean, what is the point here? In theory, it's to protect one realm (and group of players) from a particular action that exploits game mechanics to generate an advantage that the very existence of the rule implies must be unfair. That has unquestionably happened here. By introducing the question of intent, the rule is made practically unenforceable and its reason for existence compromised. It essentially makes it so that something that is apparently considered to be objectively unfair (generating a wartime advantage through secession) is only considered a violation of the rule against it if someone is foolish enough to admit that what they did was purely to generate that advantage and for no other reason. In other words, it states that the very same action is unfair if done for one specific reason but not unfair if done for any other reason at all, which is both a logical contradiction and utterly nonsensical. Either it's not fair or there's nothing wrong with it; it can't be both.

If the consensus is that intent is all that matters (and not the impact it's going to have on the other team, which seems to me to be the only reason to have made the rule in the first place), you might as well just scrap the rule altogether; several people have already suggested that it's been ages since it was actually enforced, which I think just goes to prove the point - as interpreted by Anaris and others, the rule is both pointless and virtually unenforceable. No one will be stupid enough to actually admit that they're seceding a city in order to gain a strategic advantage even though that's exactly what they're getting, and so the rule will never be invoked and the possibility of strategic secessions will be a de facto reality whether they are fair to the other side or not.

De-Legro

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #34: November 07, 2013, 04:50:18 AM »
We know he intended to secede with the full knowledge that a strategic advantage would result from his action. No part of this was a surprise to him or a random occurrence. You guys keep hemming and hawing about the player's intent as if there could be any doubt about it.



You might also look up the definition of false analogy. Getting injured in a car accident is merely a risk that you try to avoid. The strategic advantage here is a foreseeable consequence of seceding and a relative certainty. But if you're driving your car and you see someone standing in the middle of the road, and you don't make any attempt to avoid him, then you intended to run him over. If you point a loaded gun at someone and pull the trigger, then you intended to shoot him. You're not excused just because the bullet passed through him and hit a deer.

Which is it. First we have people claiming we can't POSSIBLY know his intent. Now we have the revelation that the intent is obvious. It is reasonable to believe he understands the possible strategic advantage his actions could provide. Considering that this has been many times in the past, for example Fontan spun off SOA in the middle of the war against Old Rancagua and Ubent captured the rogue city of Isadril and turned it into the realm of Fallangard, creating a realm that could fight against Itorunt leaving Ubent free to focus on Sirion instead, it might be reasonable to assume that things are not as simple as you present.

By introducing the question of intent, the rule is made practically unenforceable and its reason for existence compromised. It essentially makes it so that something that is apparently considered to be objectively unfair (generating a wartime advantage through secession) is only considered a violation of the rule against it if someone is foolish enough to admit that what they did was purely to generate that advantage and for no other reason. In other words, it states that the very same action is unfair if done for one specific reason but not unfair if done for any other reason at all, which is both a logical contradiction and utterly nonsensical. Either it's not fair or there's nothing wrong with it; it can't be both.


This is false. Intent is a HARD thing to deal with I grant you. But we often "prove" intent in the real world without admission from the suspected guilty party. Just like in real life anything to do with intent is also likely to involve controversy. For instance the recent Terran-D\'Hara Realm Merger case hinged on intent. The magistrates had to decide if it was a friendly merger, or if the merger was a "surrender", though they did not surrender to the force arrayed against them. Yet in a previous case the magistrates declared

"Realm mergers are only allowed if all its regions are taken over through war. This would be the meaning of 'no friendly realm mergers allowed'."

It was decided that although the regions were not "taken over" through war, the intention was basically similar, it was a surrender.
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Geronus

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #35: November 07, 2013, 04:55:40 AM »
This is false. Intent is a HARD thing to deal with I grant you. But we often "prove" intent in the real world without admission from the suspected guilty party. Just like in real life anything to do with intent is also likely to involve controversy. For instance the recent Terran-D\'Hara Realm Merger case hinged on intent. The magistrates had to decide if it was a friendly merger, or if the merger was a "surrender", though they did not surrender to the force arrayed against them. Yet in a previous case the magistrates declared

"Realm mergers are only allowed if all its regions are taken over through war. This would be the meaning of 'no friendly realm mergers allowed'."

It was decided that although the regions were not "taken over" through war, the intention was basically similar, it was a surrender.

That rule is also written around intent, but it is not quite the same in my reckoning. There's more of a gray area about who exactly is getting hurt in the event of a realm merger, as well as a decidedly different intent behind the rule. Most of BM's rules are designed to protect players from each other. The realm merger rule is not. I'd elaborate but that would be decidedly off topic. In short, I do not accept the equivalence you are posing.

Edit: Also, as to intent, it's virtually impossible for us to prove, reliant as we are on evidence provided by others. Unless the defendant has been relatively open with at least one person about their intent, a person who then comes forward with the evidence to prove it, there's not much we can do other than look at what happened and the evidence provided and try to guess what the actual intent was. Sometimes it may seem like the only reason to do something is for advantage but we can't really know, and our decisions will end up being essentially arbitrary and heavily weighted toward innocence in virtually all cases that invoke this rule since it is so narrowly interpreted.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2013, 05:03:36 AM by Geronus »

Geronus

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #36: November 07, 2013, 05:09:33 AM »
What it really comes down to for me is, just what is the purpose of this rule? Presumably, it is to prevent one group of players from unfairly gaining an advantage over another via secession. My problem with all this business of intent is that it compromises that basic purpose and renders the rule almost completely useless as a means of protecting players. That being the case, the rule seems pointless to me if interpreted in such a fashion. Does anyone believe that the purpose of the rule is not to protect players?

De-Legro

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #37: November 07, 2013, 05:16:56 AM »
That rule is also written around intent, but it is not quite the same in my reckoning. There's more of a gray area about who exactly is getting hurt in the event of a realm merger, as well as a decidedly different intent behind the rule. Most of BM's rules are designed to protect players from each other. The realm merger rule is not. I'd elaborate but that would be decidedly off topic. In short, I do not accept the equivalence you are posing.

Edit: Also, as to intent, it's virtually impossible for us to prove, reliant as we are on evidence provided by others. Unless the defendant has been relatively open with at least one person about their intent, a person who then comes forward with the evidence to prove it, there's not much we can do other than look at what happened and the evidence provided and try to guess what the actual intent was. Sometimes it may seem like the only reason to do something is for advantage but we can't really know, and our decisions will end up being essentially arbitrary and heavily weighted toward innocence in virtually all cases that invoke this rule since it is so narrowly interpreted.

And you know what, that is fine. You guys aren't omnipotent, you can only do as the evidence provides base on your own logical though  process suggests. Juries are no different though we often like to pretend that somehow they are. My argument is that to simply throw intent out the window is not the way to handle it. I can argue till I'm blue in the face that I believe his intent was not to provide strategic advantage, but I can't know that either, it is just my opinion. This is why magistrates work as a group, so deliberation does not rely on a single opinion of the facts.
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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #38: November 07, 2013, 05:29:21 AM »
Why is there so much text in this thread?

This is not a strategic secession in the sense that the rule was written. I know how I'm voting.
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Vellos

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #39: November 07, 2013, 05:47:14 AM »
It is not the job of the Magistrates to reinterpret rules that Tom has set down clear expectations for.

Has he done this? In a place we can all see? And not vague recollections?

Unless you've decided to take up Fury's cry of "The Magistrates should rewrite all the rules to suit us" now that he's gone?

No, I haven't. But I'm saying that we are under no obligation to accept a specific interpretation of the rule unless Tom says so when we consider it. Tom's preferences are not eternal and immutable.

Why is there so much text in this thread?

This is not a strategic secession in the sense that the rule was written. I know how I'm voting.

I tend to agree as far as intent is concerned: it seems evident to me that intent is the key component.

However, I share Geronus' concerns about feasibility.
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trying

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #40: November 07, 2013, 07:04:44 AM »
Intent is quite important and juries do take that into consideration.

In fact here is a link to a news broadcast that shows what happens when intent is misconstrued.
(hopefully this isn't too off topic)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCkL9UlmCOE

Geronus

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #41: November 07, 2013, 03:21:51 PM »
I'm willing to accept the interpretation being put forward that intent is all that matters, but then I will also state one final time that I now believe the rule to be almost entirely moot, and barring a case where one or more parties involved is stupid enough to state, explicitly, that they are only seceding a city to gain an advantage, I would never vote to punish anyone based on this rule. The way it's interpreted it doesn't protect anyone from anything. All it does is force people to have a fig leaf to cover up their otherwise blatant exploitation of game mechanics.

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #42: November 07, 2013, 03:32:50 PM »
I'm willing to accept the interpretation being put forward that intent is all that matters, but then I will also state one final time that I now believe the rule to be almost entirely moot, and barring a case where one or more parties involved is stupid enough to state, explicitly, that they are only seceding a city to gain an advantage, I would never vote to punish anyone based on this rule. The way it's interpreted it doesn't protect anyone from anything. All it does is force people to have a fig leaf to cover up their otherwise blatant exploitation of game mechanics.

Please reread Telrunya's quote from Tom. It seems to pretty clearly indicate that it's meant to be a narrow rule protecting against blatant abuse. Not something intended for using as a club against anyone who secedes when you would prefer that they not do so.

All rules are not created equal. Some require careful scrutiny and long debate to be sure whether you've got it. Others, you can look at the situation and tell, "Yep, that's a violation," or "Nope, that's just fine." According to Tom, this is in the latter category, and the criteria you're supposed to use are not simple geography, but intent.

I challenge you to find a reasonable way to apply Tom's own words to this case and the clearly-stated intentions of Riombara and Marec Alumaani, and come up with a result of "blatant abuse."
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Geronus

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #43: November 07, 2013, 03:40:40 PM »
Please reread Telrunya's quote from Tom. It seems to pretty clearly indicate that it's meant to be a narrow rule protecting against blatant abuse. Not something intended for using as a club against anyone who secedes when you would prefer that they not do so.

All rules are not created equal. Some require careful scrutiny and long debate to be sure whether you've got it. Others, you can look at the situation and tell, "Yep, that's a violation," or "Nope, that's just fine." According to Tom, this is in the latter category, and the criteria you're supposed to use are not simple geography, but intent.

I challenge you to find a reasonable way to apply Tom's own words to this case and the clearly-stated intentions of Riombara and Marec Alumaani, and come up with a result of "blatant abuse."

I know the intent in this case was not abusive. That's not what I'm saying. I'm criticizing the rule as being either ineffective or unnecessary depending on what its intent actually is.

If the rule's only intent (which it is becoming increasingly clear to me must be the case) is to force people to have some sort of RP reason for a secession that confers a strategic advantage, then it is working perfectly. If its intent was ever anything else, than it's not.

vonGenf

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Re: Posts that do not provide evidence
« Reply #44: November 07, 2013, 03:44:17 PM »
If the rule's only intent (which it is becoming increasingly clear to me must be the case) is to force people to have some sort of RP reason for a secession that confers a strategic advantage, then it is working perfectly. If its intent was ever anything else, than it's not.

If it is the intent, then it's not an unreasonable one. On Dwilight that falls under the SMA rules, but on non-SMA continents it can ensure to at least force proper behaviour for actions that can single-handedly alter the history of the continent such as secessions, mergers and capital moves, while not forcing SMA for other actions with less wide-ranging consequences.
After all it's a roleplaying game.