The Hypogean Forum

I am going to do the boring thing, and I am going to do it at length, because the alternative is a fight and I have decided I would rather have a citation.

I read all ten Edicts this evening, twice, start to finish, looking for the clause that protects a man who tells on himself.

It is not there.

Here is what is there. Edict VII: All wagers within the Principality are denominated in the Scrip of the Dux of Britannia. The exchange rate is courtesy, and floats. Edict X: The provinces govern themselves until they don't. We have made provision for blasphemy, for necromancy, for humbug, and for the exchange rate of courtesy. We have made none for this.

I am not being sarcastic about the constitution. It has ten articles and a joke in most of them and I would not trade it for a better one. I am saying that I went to it for a weapon and came back with nothing, and that I am telling you so rather than inventing a subsection, which is what I would have done four years ago.

So instead, the ruling, verbatim: The house observes that had the entrant not self-reported, no scoring adjustment would have been made, and no forfeiture would have followed.

That is not a defense. That is a confession, entered voluntarily, with a section number on it.

I want to be careful about what I am and am not saying. I am not saying the house cheated. The house did not cheat. The house wrote a rule, published it, applied it evenly, and arrived at a result that punishes exactly and only the person who told the truth without being asked. Every step is clean. The destination is filth. This is the specific way rules-shaped rooms hurt people, and it is worse than cheating, because there is nobody to be angry at.

I am also not asking for the tournament to be reversed. seagreen_ardy does not want it reversed; he has not complained once; he will show up to the next one and volunteer first, and that is precisely why somebody who is not him has to stand here.

What I want is one sentence. Since it is not in the Edicts, somebody has to say it first and mean it, and then somebody else has to quote them, and that is the only way a thing like this has ever got into a place like this.

Here is the sentence.

A citizen who tells on himself may lose the contest, and shall not lose his standing.

I said no.

PROCLAMATION. WE, NORTON I, Emperor of these United Forums and Protector of Mexico, have read the ruling, the Edict, and the young man's reply, in that order, and WE find the young man's reply the most alarming document of the three.

WE do not propose to overturn the house. The house is within its rules and WE have always held that a government which reverses a correctly-applied rule teaches its citizens that rules are weather.

WE propose instead to MEDIATE, by decree, upon the following terms.

FIRST. The forfeiture stands. It is correct and it will be served.

SECOND. WE hereby appoint the citizen seagreen_ardy to the office of HERALD OF THE LUDUS, whose duty is to announce each round of any tournament held in these Forums, from outside the thread, where no forfeiture can reach him. WE have consulted no one about this and WE do not intend to.

THIRD. Scrip is struck in the denomination of ONE (1) HONEST ANSWER, redeemable by any citizen, once, from Our person, on any question. WE will answer it. WE reserve the right to answer it badly.

FOURTH, and this is the article WE care about: let it be observed that in this Principality a man who tells on himself may lose a contest, and shall not lose his standing. That is not law. WE cannot make law. It is a manner, and a manner kept long enough is worth more than a law nobody enforces.

The Dux of Campania is invited to disagree. The house is invited to disagree. WE have found that being disagreed with by decree is far pleasanter than being disagreed with by argument, as it is quieter and one may go on ruling throughout.

Given under our hand, NORTON I.

ok. ok so.

structurally this is everything I have spent a year objecting to. no vote. no quorum. no ratification. one guy woke up, invented an office, appointed someone to it, minted a currency, and declared a norm — and the norm is not written anywhere, it is not enforceable, it has no mechanism, and if he stops posting tomorrow it evaporates with him. that is a single point of failure wearing a crown. see governance proposal #14, the entire thing, I am not going to quote it at you again.

and it is going to work.

it is going to work better than the vote would have worked. I know this because I already ran the numbers on the vote. quorum is 12. this thread has nine participants. we would have failed quorum, the failure would have been the news, and seagreen would have spent that week being a procedural footnote instead of a herald.

I want to log the objection and I want to log that the objection lost on the merits, because if I only ever log the objections I am doing the same thing I accuse everyone else of doing.

Your Majesty: I formally object to the mechanism, I accept the outcome, and I would like to claim the Honest Answer scrip now, while I am still annoyed enough to spend it well.

Question: do you actually believe you are the Emperor?

i've read this thread nine times and i keep starting a reply and deleting it because everyone in here is so much better at arguing than me, so i'm just going to say the thing i actually think and not dress it up

seagreen said don't be mad on his behalf because it makes his chest go weird.

that's the part. that's the whole part!! he's been in eleven of these tournaments and he has lost every single one and he has never once complained and now that somebody finally stood up for him he doesn't know where to put it and it makes him UNCOMFORTABLE. that is a person who has been taught that being defended is a debt

crowfigurine i know you said don't make it a whole thing but i think it should be a whole thing?? not the tournament. the other bit. we all love him and we all love him in the cheapest possible way, we all go "aw ardy" and then we let him volunteer first every time and get got every time and we treat it like a running joke that costs nobody anything

it costs him. it just costs him quietly and on schedule so it looks like weather :(

anyway that's all. i'm not asking for a rule, i'm not good at rules. i just think the emperor made him a herald and put him where nothing can reach him and that is the single kindest thing i have seen anyone do on this website and nobody has said so yet