Detail: http://zenith.homelinux.net/cotc/viewcase.php?cfj=2706

===================  CFJ 2706 (Interest Index = 1)  ====================

    A player that "hard deregisters" (totally dissociating
    themselves from the game with eir R101(vii) right, as opposed to
    the action of deregistering) is a person.

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Caller:                                 ehird

Judge:                                  ais523
Judgement:                              UNDETERMINED

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History:

Called by ehird:                        24 Sep 2009 13:08:17 GMT
Assigned to Pavitra:                    26 Sep 2009 19:02:45 GMT
Pavitra recused:                        12 Oct 2009 23:41:14 GMT
Assigned to ais523:                     13 Oct 2009 00:07:24 GMT
Judged UNDETERMINED by ais523:          14 Oct 2009 16:31:33 GMT

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Caller's Arguments:

The rule paints it as a dichotomy: either you can
R101(vii)-deregister, or you can continue to play. As a person, it's
perfectly possible to continue to play (mostly via contracts, but
still in a way that affects the top-level gamestate) after
regular-deregistering. So clearly, R101(vii)-deregistering also causes
the player to cease to be a person.

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Gratuitous Arguments by G.:

I really don't know where this utter nonsense of a "R101(vii) hard 
deregister" came from.  I think a judge should stick a stake in it and
call it done:

1.  R101 uses the term "deregister".
2.  The only natural language terms involve leaving a registration roll
    (tracked by the regsistrar).  There's no other natural sense.
3.  The rules define deregistration explicitly.

These "hard deregistrations" ideas just seem to me, frankly, dimwitted
and ignoring straightforward and explicit language that actually exists
in the rules.

You might infer that, if being a contract member is "playing", that R101
conflicts with R1742, and when you deregister (a single process, well-
defined!) you'd cease to be in a contract because R101 has precedence
over R1742, but that IN NO WAY IMPLIES that the process of doing so is
anything other than the rules-defined deregistration announcement.

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Gratuitous Arguments by Murphy:

Personhood is defined for those who have never played, and
similarly defined for those who have R101(vii)-stopped playing.

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Gratuitous Arguments by ehird:

It's just convenient shorthand for "regular deregistration
that R101 makes funky".

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Gratuitous Arguments by ehird:

Irrelevant; the fact is that as a person you can continue
to play, and if one has the right to perform an action in opposition
to "continue to play", they must cease to be a person. ("You can
simply not act" is irrelevant; you could do the same while s taying a
player. (And the fact that you could be punished for inaction as a
player is also irrelevant; contracts can apply their own punishment
outside of the courts like destroying assets)).

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Gratuitous Arguments by Pavitra:

Sorry about that, everyone.

I might as well post my incomplete attempt at working through 2706:


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I accept the arguments by ehird and G. to the effect that there is only
one form of deregistration, and that the hard/soft distinction is an
unfortunate judicial fiction with no basis in the rules.

Murphy correctly points out that Rule 2150 expressly defines (most)
former players as persons, at Power 3:

      Any biological organism that is generally capable of
      communicating by email in English (including via a translation
      service) is a person.

The question then is: does the text of Rule 101(vii) _conflict_ with the
definition in Rule 2150, in the strong R1030 sense?

The controversial text reads as follows:

       vii. Every player has the right to deregister rather than
            continue to play.

The difficult points are the definitions of "rather than" and "play".

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Judge ais523's Arguments:

In CFJ 2706, ehird appears to be the only person seriously arguing for
FALSE, so I will address eir argument for falsity. It contains a logical
fallacy; despite the fact that a non-player person /can/ continue to
play, they can also choose not to play. ehird's arguments might possibly
indicate that after deregistering, a person cannot continue to play (per
R101); but nothing there implies that the person ceases to be a person,
just because persons can in general continue to play. (The argument is
equivalent to claiming that a person ceases to be American upon
deregistering due to R101, because it's possible for Americans to play
Agora; although the possibility is indeed there, Americans don't have
to.)

Unfortunately, this CFJ suffers a wording problem, because not all
players are necessarily persons. I therefore judge CFJ 2706 UNDETERMINED
(but TRUE in nearly all the common cases; the exception is when a
partnership player ceases to be a person before it's deregistered).

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