Round: 98 Theme: Quality and Quantity Judge: Richard Wein (Tich) Started: 16 August 1998 00:00 RULES SUMMARY ------------- RULE AUTHOR DATE VALIDITY STYLE 98:1 Nicholson Neisler 16 August 1998 00:00 VALID +1.5 98:2 Doug Chatham 16 August 1998 01:42 VALID +0.5 98:3 Doug Chatham 16 August 1998 01:59 VALID -1.0 98:4 John-Martin 16 August 1998 04:35 INVALID -2.0 98:5 Nicholson Neisler 18 August 1998 00:06 VALID +1.0 98:6 Doug Chatham 19 August 1998 00:04 VALID +0.5 98:7 Ed Murphy 19 August 1998 10:40 VALID +0.5 98:8 Steven Swiniarski 19 August 1998 16:53 INVALID +0.5 98:9 Steven Swiniarski 19 August 1998 19:40 INVALID +1.5 98:10 Stein Kulseth 21 August 1998 14:41 VALID +1.0 98:11 Ed Murphy 24 August 1998 07:06 INVALID +0.0 98:12 Ed Murphy 24 August 1998 07:52 VALID +0.0 98:13 Stein Kulseth 25 August 1998 07:58 VALID +1.5 PLAYER SCORES ------------- Nicholson Neisler +2.5 Doug Chatham +0.0 John-Martin -2.0 Ed Murphy +0.5 Steven Swiniarski +2.0 Stein Kulseth +2.5 Stein Kulseth wins the round and becomes Judge. Nicholson Neisler and Stein Kulseth become Co-wizards. RULES ----- From: Nicholson Neisler To: Fantasy Rules Committee Date: 16 August 1998 00:00 Subject: 98:1 >FRCers, > >I received the follow mail this morning. I thought is was worthwhile to >pass it on. I have ammended at rule at the bottom in accordance with >the letter. > >-Nick > >Theme: Quantity and Quality >Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 15:15:03 -0700 >From: Sub-sub Committee on FRC Funding >Organization: Fantasy Rules Committee >To: Nick Neisler > >Nick Neisler, > >As a member of the FRC Sub-sub Committee on FRC funding, I regret to >inform you of FRC funding cutbacks. Due to the decrease in FRC >participation and the recent increase in administrative expenses, I am >charging the FRC body to improve efficiency in the FRC. This is to be >implemented immediately. Please come up with as many efficiency >promoting methods as possible. I will be in future contact. > > >Thank You. Have a nice day. > >Senior Executive Director of the Sub-sub Committee on FRC Funding > >------------- >(31) > >All following rules must be shorter that 40 words. >All rules must include a (word count) at the beginning of the rule. >The (word count) is not counted as a word. > >------------- > Thank you for getting the round started, Nick. Validity. As other people have pointed out, it appears that the rule consists of just the passage between the dotted lines. Nothing wrong with this. So VALID. Style. +0.5 Effective, if unoriginal, first rule. +0.5 Not too restrictive. Plenty of potential. +0.5 Forces future rules to be short. +0.5 Amusing introduction. (I feel free to award points for this even though it isn't part of the rule.) -0.5 Forces posters to count words, which is tedious and error-prone. I'd hate to have to declare a good rule to be invalid just because someone miscounted. Total: +1.5 Interpretations. 1. Since there's no explicit definition of what constitutes a word, players will have to be careful to be consistent with previous rules. For example, it appears that "40" is a word. 2. Although the intro is not part of the rule, I consider it to be a declaration of the round's theme. So the theme is "Quantity and Quality". Tich. ========================================================================== From: Doug Chatham To: frc@troll.no Date: 16 August 1998 01:42 Subject: 98:2 >(26) > >The absolute value of the difference between the (word count) of a rule >and that of the immediately preceding valid rule (if any) shall exceed 4. VALID Style. +0.5 Nice simple rule. Not too restrictive. Tich. ========================================================================== From: Doug Chatham To: frc@troll.no Date: 16 August 1998 01:59 Subject: 96:3 >I hope His Honor will forgive the dual submission, but since we're limited >to 40 words/rule... Such politeness... of course I'll forgive you. >Anyway,96:3 reads as follows: >__________________________________________ >(13) >No valid rule may conflict with a valid rule with higher (word count). VALID. (It's a good thing that the text above the line is not part of the rule, so it doesn't matter that you got the rule number wrong!) Style. -1.0 Irrelevant rule. A valid rule may never conflict with another valid rule (RO 6), so this rule has no effect. (Or am I missing something?) Tich. ========================================================================== From: John-Martin To: frc@troll.no Date: 16 August 1998 04:35 Subject: 98.4, I think >count 27 words > >To encourage brief sentences. >Compare longest sentence length to 10 words. >If shorter or equal, add difference to the maximum length, >If longer, subtract twice the difference Validity. I don't understand what this rule means: "add difference to the maximum length" of what? Unfortunately, the rule doesn't give an example of itself in action, because its longest sentence length is 10 words, and the difference is therefore 0, so nothing is added or subtracted. The only thing I can think of is that this is an attempt to override rule 98:1 and change the maximum rule length. However, that would be problematic (as a rule of 40 or more words would still be inconsistent with 98:1), and, as I'm not even sure that that's what it means, I'm ruling it INVALID. If I'm missing something obvious, would someone please point it out to me, and I'll consider changing my ruling. Style: -2.0 Unclear and confusing. Tich. ========================================================================== From: Nicholson Neisler To: Fantasy Rules Committee Date: 18 August 1998 00:06 Subject: 98:5 >----- >(32) > >All future rules must include a Quality Rating (QR). >The QR is not counted in the rule word count. >This QR must be the placed the end of the rule, as below. > >(2) >-------- Note: after posting this rule, Nick sent me a correction. The last line should read: "This QR must be placed at the end of the rule, as below." I think that was fairly obvious, so I'll simply treat the rule as if it read thus. The word count is unaffected. Validity: VALID. Style: +1.0 A simple rule, which expands on the original theme. Nick also wrote (re rule 98:1): >Just as an aside, I intentionally did not state that the word count had to be >correct. I added the word count stipulation so people would count their length >and not submit invalid rules. (Or make you have to count every rule.) You're right, in that rule 98:1 didn't actually specify which words were to be counted, so you could argue that the word count can be any number you like, until such time as the meaning of "word count" is precisely defined. However, rightly or wrongly, I'm going to continue to interpret this "word count" as meaning the number of words in the rule, and insist that it be correct. So count carefully! Tich. ========================================================================== From: Doug Chatham To: frc@troll.no Date: 19 August 1998 00:04 Subject: 98:6 >(39) >If you divide the Quality Rating of a rule by its word count, the >result is the rule's Excellence Quotient. The Excellence Quotient of a >rule that has one must exceed that of all prior rules with Excellence >Quotients. >(9) VALID Style: +0.5 Reasonable rule. By the way, it would be nice to know what, if anything, the Quality Rating really represents. Tich. ========================================================================== From: Ed Murphy To: Fantasy Rules Committee Date: 19 August 1998 10:40 Subject: 98:7 >(12) > >Quality Ratings are at most ten. >Excellence Quotients are at most one. > >(3) VALID. Style: +0.5 OK. I think it's good to have an upper limit on Quality Ratings. I have a feeling that the two limits together will lead eventually to a sequence of ever shorter rules. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it's been done before (Round 7). Tich. ========================================================================== From: Steven Swiniarski To: frc@troll.no Date: 19 August 1998 16:53 Subject: 98:8 >--- >(30) > >Rules with an ER(1) must have a WC(2) of 30 or less. >Rules' ERs are in brackets next to their QR(3), as shown. >FNs(4) describing abbreviations don't add to WC. > >(9[4]) >--- >(1) Efficiency Rating >(2) Word Count >(3) Quality Rating >(4) Footnotes > >-- Validity: I'm in something of a quandary here. In my '98:5 - Ruling', I said that I was going to interpret "word count" as meaning the number of words in the rule, and insist that it be correct. Making footnotes not contribute to the word count is inconsistent with this. However, I realise now that 98:5 did the same sort of thing, in specifying that the the QR is not counted in the word count (when it had been established by the predecent of 98:1 that numbers count as words). I feel I now have 3 alternatives: 1. Stick to my interpretation of "word count" and overlook the fact that it makes 98:1 and 98:5 mutually inconsistent. 2. Change my interpretation to something more complicated, which will make all the valid rules consistent. 3. Withdraw my interpretation and treat "word count" as undefined. I don't like alternative 1, as it creates an inconsistency. Also, it would force me to judge 98:8 invalid. I don't like alternative 2, because it's not really my job as judge to be making up rules. So I'm going with alternative 3. This means you should all ignore the interpretation that I gave in '98:5 - Ruling'. "Word count" is considered to be undefined (we don't know what words are being counted). I will give high style points to anyone who comes up with a good, consistent definition of "word count" in a future rule. So rule 98:8 is VALID. Style: +0.5 OK. Adds some new terms. We now have quite a lot of undefined terms. It would be nice to see some definitions. Tich. ========================================================================== Oh dear, I think I've made a bit of a mess of this. Let's try to sort things out... First, I hope no-one was too confused by my last post having the subject line "Re: 98:5 - Ruling". Of course, that should have been "Re: 98:8 - Ruling". Next, as Anton points out, rule 98:5 states that the QR must be placed at the end of the rule. This means that 98:8 should have been judged invalid. Even if the footnotes are considered not to be part of the rule, I must treat the ER as part of the rule, since it's on the same line as the QR. However, the ER has been placed AFTER the QR, so the QR is not at the end of the rule. I am therefore changing my ruling on 98:8. It is now INVALID. This saves me having to tackle the thorny issue of the footnotes. Now, I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to change a ruling. So please speak up if you have any objection. Until this is settled, I won't make any further rulings. In future, please be clear about exactly where your rule begins and ends. My decision to treat "word count" as undefined still stands. Tich. ========================================================================== No-one's objected to me changing my ruling on 98:8. So my new ruling stands. 98:8 is INVALID. -----Original Message----- From: Steven Swiniarski To: frc@troll.no Date: 19 August 1998 19:40 Subject: 98:9 >--- >(26) > >The WC of a rule is the number of CGs(1) in the >rule excluding; dashes, the WC itself, FNs, the QR >and the ER, if any. > >(8 [2]) >--- >(1) Character Groups (characters delimited by spaces or the EOL(2)) >(2) End of a line. Validity: INVALID This rule is invalid for the same reason that 98:8 was: the QR is not at the end of the rule, as required by 98:5. (By the way, if 98:8 *had* been valid, 98:9 would have been invalid anyway, since the difference between the word counts of 98:8 and 98:9 is only 4, but 98:2 requires that it *exceed* 4.) Style: +2.0 I promised high style points to anyone who could come up with a good definition of word count. This would have been a good one if it had been valid. -0.5 Invalid ------ +1.5 Total Tich. ========================================================================== From: Stein.Kulseth@kjeller.fou.telenor.no To: frc@troll.no Date: 21 August 1998 14:41 Subject: 98:10 >>>>> >(18) > >Division by primes are illegal, but any division >by a composite number is legal, and in fact mandatory. > >(5) >>>>> Validity: VALID. I'm not familiar with the term "composite number". I assume it means the same as "non-prime number" (or maybe it's "non-prime number excluding zero"). Anyway, all previous valid rules with Excellence Quotients do indeed have non-prime divisors (word counts). So this rule is consistent with previous rules. Style: +0.5 Reasonable rule +0.5 Cleverly consistent with previous rules. ------ +1.0 Total Tich. ========================================================================== From: Ed Murphy To: Fantasy Rules Committee Date: 24 August 1998 07:06 Subject: 98:11 >(13) > >No valid rule shall have the same Quality Rating as a previous rule. > >(4) > > >-- Validity: INVALID As you say in your next message, the word count is a prime, so calculating the Excellence Quotient involves dividing by a prime (in violation of 98:10). Style: 0.0 Not terribly interesting, even if it were valid. Tich. ========================================================================== From: Ed Murphy To: Fantasy Rules Committee Date: 24 August 1998 07:52 Subject: 98:12 > > >(12) > >No valid rule has the same Quality Rating as another valid rule. > >(4) > > >-- Validity: VALID. Style: 0.0 Still not very interesting. Tich. ========================================================================== From: Stein.Kulseth@kjeller.fou.telenor.no To: frc@troll.no Date: 25 August 1998 07:58 Subject: resisting the temptation... > >(4) > >EQs are never integers. > >(pi) > Validity: VALID. Style: +1.5 A good attempt to prevent the round being ended (though I think I see a flaw). By the way, let me remind you all of my earlier ruling that "word count" has never been precisely defined. (Which words are being counted?) Tich. ==========================================================================