Detail: http://zenith.homelinux.net/cotc/viewcase.php?cfj=866 ============================== CFJ 866 =============================== Player Jtael has cast legal Votes on Proposals 2555 through 2564. ======================================================================== Caller: Morendil Barred: Kelly Judge: Oerjan Judgement: TRUE ======================================================================== History: Called by Morendil: 08 Apr 1996 01:26:05 GMT Assigned to Oerjan: 08 Apr 1996 13:59:06 GMT Judged TRUE by Oerjan: 09 Apr 1996 02:58:29 GMT ======================================================================== Caller's Arguments: of eir own admission, Assessor Kelly lost some of eir mail during the Voting Period on Proposals 2555-2564, which e notified to the Public Forum. It appears that one message from Player Jtael, containing Votes on these Proposals, was sent to the Assessor, presumably posterior to this event (since the Assessor did receive that mail), and possibly as a reply to the Assessor's request that Players resend their Votes. These Votes, however, were received posterior to the close of the Voting Period on these Proposals, which followed the Assessor's message by a few hours. However, Player Jtael has indicated that this message was eir *second* posting of Votes on these Proposals; the balance of the evidence is therefore in favor of the notion that Jtael's Votes were probably sent during the Voting Period, received at the Assessor's end and deleted in the event to which the Assessor alluded. I don't, however, claim any knowledge of this, or know of a means to determine it with certainty; I can only contribute circumstantial evidence. I leave it to the Judge to determine whether, in the words of Rule 1575, "the preponderance of the evidence at hand" is consistent with the Statement. There remains the question of the legal significance of mail received at a Player's computer but lost, or unread, during the period when it has legal significance; I feel there are strong reasons related in particular to "the best interests of the Game" to believe that this shall be resolved to support the notion that if the preceding outline of event corresponds to reality, then this Statement is TRUE. However I wish to make my reasons clear in a separate CFJ, since the issue has bearing on matters beyond this Statement. ======================================================================== Caller's Evidence: Kelly's message to nomic-business (sig omitted) : --- Date sent: Sun, 31 Mar 96 21:43:23 EST5 From: kelly@poverty.bloomington.in.us (Kelly Martin) To: nomic-business@teleport.com Subject: BUS: mail lossage Send reply to: nomic-discussion@teleport.com for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, i have lost some of my mail, including possibly voting messages. if you've sent me any votes in the last two or three days, resend them now, just to be sure. k. --- Jtael's message to nomic-discussion : --- From: Michael Hough Subject: Re: OFF: Assessor's Report, 2555-2564 To: nomic-discussion@teleport.com Date sent: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 12:16:47 -0800 (PST) Send reply to: nomic-discussion@teleport.com Arrgh! This is extremely frustrating; I've sent my votes on these proposals to the Assessor, twice. The latest batch: Subject: votes on 2555-2564 To: kelly@poverty.bloomington.in.us Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 20:23:50 +4000 (PST) --- Kelly's reply in nomic-discussion (headers omitted) : --- your votes were not received by the Assessor during the Voting Period. Michael> Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 20:23:50 +4000 (PST) setting aside the ludicry of "+4000" as a time zone, the VP on 2555 to 2564 ended 31 Mar 1996 17:26:02 UTC, or about 11 hours before you sent your Votes. therefore, they don't count. sorry. --- ======================================================================== Judge Oerjan's Arguments: I find that this statement hinges on when a message can be said to have been received by the recipient, in the case when this is a person. One possibility is to say that a message is received when the recipient reads the message. This is highly dangerous however, as it is often easy for the recipient to set up automatic filters, which could prevent em from seeing unwanted messages at all; furthermore, and perhaps more important in a trust-based forum like Agora, this could lead to unacceptable delays between the sending and receipt of a message. I would therefore prefer, if possible, an interpretation which avoids this possibility. I therefore instead choose to interpret the time of receipt to be when the message enters the recipient's normal technical domain of control, whether this be eir private machine or eir private account on a shared machine (but not the shared machine itself, if the recipient does not control it.) >From Kelly's explanations, I understand that the loss of messages must have happened after the messages were transfered to her private machine. I therefore judge that she received these messages. ======================================================================== Judge Oerjan's Evidence: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 8 Apr 96 20:08:31 EST5 From: Kelly Martin To: nomic-business@teleport.com Subject: BUS: Verified Declaration of the Assessor I, KELLY MARTIN, declare as follows: I. I am presently, and have been continuously since March 15th, 1996, a Player of Agora Nomic, and the duly elected Assessor of the same. II. At no time, during the Voting Periods of the Proposals numbered 2555 through 2564, did I, while acting in my official capacity of Assessor of Agora Nomic, receive a message from the Player Jtael, which purported to indicate the manner in which the aforementioned Player intended to Vote upon those Proposals. I did receive such a message from Jtael, but not until after the Voting Periods in question had ceased. III. My computer, which receives and stores electronic mail addressed to me for my perusal, experienced a software failure on or about March 28th, resulting in the loss of several pieces of electronic mail. I have no knowledge as to whether a message from Jtael, of any sort, may have been included in the messages thus lost. IV. I have no interest in attempting to deprive Jtael of his right to vote. I had no knowledge of the anticipated outcomes of any of the Proposals in question, not having reviewed any of the votes received until after the Voting Periods had ended. The determination to discount Jtael's Votes was made by software written by myself, based on the date entered into the voting datafile by myself at the time I received and processed Jtael's message. I was not aware at that time that Jtael's Votes could not be counted. I affirm under penalty of perjury that the above statements and representations are true. Kelly Martin April 8, 1996 -- kelly martin If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for the schoolchildren of Texas. -- Texas Governor James "Pa" Ferguson, explaining why he vetoed a bill to finance the teaching of foreign language, in 1917. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 8 Apr 96 21:11:26 EST5 From: Kelly Martin To: oerjan@matstat.unit.no Subject: Re: Your lost mail "Orjan" == Orjan Johansen writes: Orjan> Could you explain a bit more what happened when you lost your Orjan> mail? In particular, did you lose only mail on the way to you, Orjan> or also some mail you had already read? the software i use to read mail failed (memory management error) while reading in new mail, corrupting my entire mail buffer. as a consequence, i lost some previously read mail, and some as-of-yet unread mail. i sometimes, but not always, skim my mail spool file (using a file pager) before bringing it in to my mail reader. further data loss were caused by a power failure, which resulted in the loss of some files which had been modified but not yet saved. i don't know if this cost me any email; it was the reason why Murphy's Votes (which i had received and processed) disappeared. k. -- kelly martin Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in the society is not between liberals and conservatives, but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers, and those who do not. -- "Miss Manners" (Judith Martin). ========================================================================