The People vs. Joe Harker

ori · Jul 19, 2007

Donsig has requested the court to start an investigation into whether Joe Harker broke the Rules of this Demogame especially the rules laid out by the Game Play Session Scheduling Initiative. The court has decided to carry out this investigation.
The evidence for the rule break Joe Harker is being accused of is presented as follows:

As evidenced in the TCIT- Friday 6th July 1300 BST (GMT +1) thread, the session originally scheduled could not be played due to a stay issued by the court. This stay was lifted by the court on July 9th at 00:50 GMT. After the stay was lifted Joe Harker posted on July 9th at 15:30 GMT:

Joe Harker said:
Ok starting now unless anyone objects

He thus stands accused of not having given the 24 hours notice required by the Game Play Session Scheduling Initiative.

This Investigation is public and all citizens are encouraged to participate in this investigation, but the following rules apply:

Court Procedures said:
The Judge Advocate will create a thread for the trial in the Citizen's forum. This initial post should contain the specific violations and the evidence for those accusations. The next two posts are reserved for the citizen accused and the Public Defender - until they post, or 36 hours from the initial post, no other citizen may post in the thread. All citizens are encouraged to post in this thread, but are reminded to respect the rights of all citizens.

Once at least 60 hours have passed from the opening of the trial thread, and discussion has petered out, the Chief Justice can declare the discussion closed, and post a Trial poll.

The Trial poll will be a private poll, with the options Innocent, Guilty and Abstain. It will run for 48 hours. The option receiving the most votes will determine the result. In the event of a tie, the members of the Judiciary will determine the result by posting clear opinions in the Trial thread.

This is a court of law, please keep the discussion civil and orderly.

No citizen is allowed to post in this thread until Joe Harker and the Public Defender (Nobody) have posted their replies or until 36 hours after this post

Nobody · Jul 19, 2007

Ladies and Gentleman of the jury,

This case is going to come down to a very simple question, what does "I am planning to play the save on Monday night" mean to you?

The Judge Advocate accuses my client Joe Harker of breaching Game Play Session Scheduling Initiative (hence forth refered to as the Game Play Initiative).

They claim he breached the Initiate when he played the game session held on Monday, the 9th of July.

For Joe Harker to have breached the Game Play Initiative means he played the game without first meeting all the requirements set out in the Game Play Initiative.

So lets first examine what requirements are set out game play initiative.

The Game Play Initiative requires that at least 24 hours before all Game Sessions the following things are publicly announced in the Democracy Game II forum:

The date and time the game play session will start
The Designated Player for the session
A link to the sessions's game play instruction thread
The purpose of the game play session

On the 4th of July, Joe Harker publicly annouced in the Democracy Game II forum the following things.

1.He would be holding the Game Session on Friday the 6th of July.
2.He would be the designated player for the session:

My first turnchat.

3.The purpose of the game session was to carry out official instructions:

....all instructions need to be in by then

and

Please attempt to not post anything other than instructions

4.He didnt need to like to the instruction thread because it was the instruction thread.

That meets all the criteria other than The date and time the game play session will start. Because although he did post this information, the game session was held up by a judicial stay.

Expecting the judicial stay to soon be lifted on Friday the 6th of July he publicly announced that on "Monday Night" he would hold the Game Session.
Although he did not specifically state "Monday the 9th of July" or "at 5pm" it was obvious from what he said:

I am planning to play the save on Monday night, is that enough time for the court case to finish?

that he intended it to be on Monday the 9th of July in the evening.

Now some people might say "Monday night" was to vague, "how do we not know it wasn't Monday the 14th of November 2056?"

So it comes down to this: When Joe Harker Publicly announced "I am planning to play the save on Monday night" did he publicly announced The date and time the game play session will start.

I think he did, so did Chieftain dutch fire and Judge Advocate Ori, when they both informed him they thought the Judaical stay would be gone in time for Monday night. Because if they didn't think he had announced the time and date how could they possibly tell him they think the review would be over in time?

Thats what the case comes down to what does "I am planning to play the save on Monday night" mean to you?

If it indicates he meant to play the session on the coming Monday then you must vote Not Guilty, if you don't think that is what he meant can you please explain to me, Joe, the chieftain and judge advocate what he meant?

Applicable laws: Game Play Session Scheduling Initiative
Defense Evidence (all quotes from from posts listed below):

Spoiler :

Joe Harker · Jul 20, 2007

Hi all,

My defence

At the time i posted the turnchat thread, it was more than 24 hours to the time i planned on starting playing, I posted clearly saying that all instructions had to be in by then. Then there was the stay on the turnchat.

This threw the whole game into a crisis, a whole raft of polls were set up, each trying to block the reults of another, therefore when it came to interpreting the results, it was a little confusing.

I announced that the turn would be played on monday night, Monday 9th of July, that was my annoucement to when i was playing the turn, this was more than 24 hours after the thread was posted or the stay being enforced, plus i had already said that instructions had to be in by the 6th.

Also this my first (and so far eventful) turnchat with a long set of instructions, several court cases running at the time and i think that i did a decent turnchat, admittly it wasn't one that set the world alight, but i think it went okay.

Joe.

fed1943 · Jul 20, 2007

Since the defender used up his two posts, it looks I can post here now.
If I'm wrong, a Mod,please, delete this post.
Before I begin I must say I see all this as role playing and nothing more.
But I would feel unconfortable if I don't post.

First: What "kind/style" of case here? Not a civilian, objective one (as would be the case if deciding upon the legal remain of the turn chat).
This is a subjective, necessarily and always connected to Officer Harker, case.
To discover and decide if he acted on purpose or careless against the law.

The charge is the defender did not give the 24 hours notice of chat start.

The question here, much more than the "24 hours" is the "notice" itself:
"Monday at night". "Monday" is clear, no need to say is on Gregorian calendar.
But "night" it is not. Night just means between the sunset and sunrise, nothing more. True, we know Mr.Harker is somewhere on Thames river, but
even in high Summer, night goes for some hours.
So, we must agree the start of chat was never said with the required precision.

But, this is far from enough to deem the defender as guilty. Was he negligent
or with bad faith?

The Court said: "the TC can be played at the DP' s discretion.".
How "the ordinary person to whom the declaration is done" should understand? I say again "the ordinary person" , not a Judge, a lawyer or a
member of Writing Comitee of a Legislative Chamber.
And the DP can only be required to have special knowledge of software for
all that links and so, and to "copy" a bunch of instructions into the game and
sometimes of the civ game. Nothing more. Besides this, he is just under the
obligation of being an ordinary person.
And, before,as while,as after, of the chat, a lot of citizens, including the
Chieftain,Judges and the requester of the investigation, posted just saying
nothing about. I say again,saying nothing, while they could and should.

Mr.Harker just acted as any normal DP would.

So, without need of further considerations, I strongly believe the defender
DP Joe Harker is Not Guilty.

Methos · Jul 20, 2007

From my understanding of this case, it's whole bearing falls on whether or not the defense [Joe Harker] was in agreeance with the statements laid down in the Game Play Initiative.

Game Play Scheduling Initiative

Any game play session must be publicly announced in the CivFanatics Civ4 - Democracy Game II forum at least 24 hours before the scheduled start of said game play session. Said announcement must include:

The date and time the game play session will start

The Designated Player for the session

A link to the sessions's game play instruction thread

The purpose of the game play session

In my opinion, statements #2 thru #4 can be agreed upon from both sides that the Defense did in fact follow them as stated. Statement #1 is the statement that is in question. As a juror, my decision is based off of all evidence in question.

The evidence in question is this statement:

Joe Harker said:
I am planning to play the save on Monday night, is that enough time for the court case to finish?

In my opinion the the statement of "Monday night" does not agree to the requirements of the Game Play Session Initiative. Monday agrees to the date, but night is not a clear point in time. Due to the Defense's location being marked as "Somewhere on the River Thames", I also do not have a clear point of where the Defense is located in the real world. Therefore I don't know when the Defense's "night" takes place. In fact, at the point that the Defense stated he was playing, this is the timestamp as seen here in Missouri.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the Defense's "night" takes place at 9:30 A.M. in Missouri. Therefore in my opinion "night" was not a clear indication of time and therefore does not follow along with our laws.

So what about this statement?

ori said:
ori said:

The court reviews in question will be completed by Monday. The court will rule on lifting the stay as soon as possible, this may however not be solely in the hands of the Judiciary.
As of now the stay is in effect and will remain so until the court decides otherwise.

Click to expand...

The court has ruled to lift the stay on the current Turnchat immediately - the TC can now be played at the DP's discretion.

According to the above Judge Advocate Ori has stated that the Defense may play at his discretion. That statement seems to grant him allowance to play whenever he wants, regardless. From my understanding of our laws, our High Courts cannot make such a statement and therefore that statement is unlawful.

It is therefore my belief that no matter how many stays are granted, the DP, or in this case the Defense, is still required to adhere to the Game Play Session Initiative. Therefore it is my opinion that he is guilty to not adhereing to our laws.

donsig · Jul 20, 2007

fed1943 said:
The question here, much more than the "24 hours" is the "notice" itself:
"Monday at night". "Monday" is clear, no need to say is on Gregorian calendar.
But "night" it is not. Night just means between the sunset and sunrise, nothing more. True, we know Mr.Harker is somewhere on Thames river, but
even in high Summer, night goes for some hours.
So, we must agree the start of chat was never said with the required precision.

But, this is far from enough to deem the defender as guilty. Was he negligent
or with bad faith?
...
So, without need of further considerations, I strongly believe the defender
DP Joe Harker is Not Guilty.

Whether Joe Harker was negligent or acted in bad faith has no bearing on whether the rule was broken or not. Either the rule was followed or it was not. If the rule was followed then we should all vote not guilty. If the rule was not followed then we should all vote guilty.

If a guilty verdict is returned then it is time to look at whether the rule was broken with impunity, through negligence or through extenuating circumstances. This all goes towards intent which should be considered only after a decision is reached on whether or not a rule was broken. For the record though, I do not think the rule was broken with impunity and so I am not in favor of any harsh punishment.

But I do think proper notice of the time the save was to be played was not given (as even fed1943 agrees) and so the initiative in question was not followed. The rule was broken and we should vote accordingly.

dutchfire · Jul 20, 2007

In my opinion the the statement of "Monday night" does not agree to the requirements of the Game Play Session Initiative. Monday agrees to the date, but night is not a clear point in time. Due to the Defense's location being marked as "Somewhere on the River Thames", I also do not have a clear point of where the Defense is located in the real world. Therefore I don't know when the Defense's "night" takes place. In fact, at the point that the Defense stated he was playing, this is the timestamp as seen here in Missouri.

Come on, River Thames => England, that's not too hard to figure out if you really want to.

In my opinion the statement "I'm going to play monday night" was precise enough, especially since it was an offline turnchat.

Joe Harker · Jul 20, 2007

Plus you could have looked in the citizen registry, i believe my location, at least roughly, is given there.

DaveShack · Jul 20, 2007

Apology in advance for this not being very precise. I have some high-priority RL stuff to do and don't have the time to be my usual thorough self. I would like to bring forward two points which might result in doubt if any law was broken. These are merely my recollections on the points and should be seen as an invitation to discuss them, nothing more. If someone who has more free time to post evidence (for or against) on these points before I can get back to doing it, feel free.

When the scheduling initiative was discussed, I think the independent thought was to provide "adequate notice". The other concepts in the initiative were aimed at being able to show that adequate notice was given, and providing guidelines on what a "good" instruction thread would have. IIRC there was discussion of accuracy, and some degree of opinion that deviations for RL must and should be expected.

We have traditionally used different standards of accuracy of the planned time between online play sessions and offline sessions. An online session needs an accurate time because people need to be able to plan around attending, if they want to. An offline session doesn't need that degree of accuracy, just a deadline by which instructions must be posted.

donsig · Jul 20, 2007

DaveShack said:
When the scheduling initiative was discussed, I think the independent thought was to provide "adequate notice". The other concepts in the initiative were aimed at being able to show that adequate notice was given, and providing guidelines on what a "good" instruction thread would have. IIRC there was discussion of accuracy, and some degree of opinion that deviations for RL must and should be expected.

My recollection is that when we drafted the initiative in question the discussion about accuracy revolved around setting a specific time for a game play session and realizing that RL might delay things a bit. For example, if the game play session was scheduled for 9:00 pm EST and a given date but the DP was unable to play until 10:00 pm or so, that would be a reasonable delay and the DP would not be taken to task under the initiative.

This is reasonable and sensible and something that was generally agreed to. From my point of view a delay is not a problem. My whole reason for supporting the initiative in the first place was to prevent a DP from playing the save prematurely, before adequate citizen input could be made. The scheduling initiative calls for the date and time to be specified so that citizens (and their elected officials) have a fair chance to give input.

Arguing that night is an adequate specification of playing time is silly. Depending on the time of year and latitude of the DP night varies considerably and averages to 12 hours! I would also like to point out that the last of the three infamous longbow polls was set to close during that Monday night (London time). By not specifying the actual playing time citizens had no idea whether or not the poll would close before play time. This deprived citizens of the scheduling initiative's fair chance to give input. Both the letter and the spirit of the initiative were broken in this case.

DaveShack · Jul 20, 2007

We must start from a position of assuming innocence, and moving towards finding guilt. I believe it is important to bring forward questions on the key points which could cast doubt on the case.

Nobody · Jul 20, 2007

I always thought night meant between 5pm and 12pm. Joe made his "going to start soon" announcement at about 2.30pm local time. And returned the save at about 6.57pm local time. So he played sometime roughly between 3pm to 7pm. (thats if Joes time is GMT+1 like i think it is)

How do we not know after the "going to start soon" he went down the pub, from what iv seen on TV british people are always doing that. So if dont the pub for a couple of hours, has some chips and warm beer. Back home around 5.01pm Takes a quick look at the forums to see if anyone objected him playing the save. Notes that Grant and Dutchfire wished him good luck, and then gets on with the save. Plays it nice and quick between 5 and 7. Nighttime. Posts the save and then back down the pub.

It was a off line game session, all instructions were in, it was set for Monday night. The save was handed in at 7pm Monday.

Bertie · Jul 21, 2007

Although I sympathize with donsigs general position, I believe the suit he has brought is wrongly founded.

As I understand it the essential question is whether Joe Harker failed to provide adequate notice of when he intended to play the first turnchat of the 5th term.

I believe the facts are that on July 3rd Joe posted he would play an offline turnchat on Friday July 6th at 1300 BST (+1GMT).

24 hours later donsig posted in the TCIT that he had requested a poll invalidation review and asked that the turnchat be delayed.

Subsequent to that Lockesdonkey posted that he granted this stay of gameplay session, effective 4:04 PM EDT, July 4, 2007. The save shall not be played until the Judicial Review into the poll in question is complete, or until the Court lifts the stay.

On July 8th, Ori, posted The court has ruled to lift the stay on the current Turnchat immediately - the TC can now be played at the DP's discretion. Not defined is what the current Turnchat is. I think a reasonable assumption is the current Turnchat is the one scheduled for July 6th at 1300 BST.

About 14 hours later on July 9th Joe posted Ok starting now unless anyone objects. He then proceeded to play the first turnchat of Term 5 - originally scheduled to be played on July 6th at 1300 BST but in fact commenced 3 days later. The fact that it began 3 days later wasnt because of delay on his part but because of judicial mandate. As soon as the Judiciary lifted its stay and suggested he play at his discretion, he did so. I submit that the turnchat that Joe played on July 9th is the same turnchat that he planned to play on July 6th; and clearly he gave more than 24 hour notice for that.

The case against Joe seems to be premised on the assumption that because the turnchat was delayed by Judicial fiat, any subsequent play must therefore be a new turnchat - where in our laws is this stated? thus requiring a new 24 hours notice of play. I suggest this is an incorrect assumption for the reasons Ive expressed above. All of the verbiage about when is Monday night? is largely irrelevant IMO because proper notice had already been given.

Now, there may be lots of other reasons why the turnchat shouldnt have been played as quickly as it was (and thats where a lot of my sympathy for donsigs position lies; theres that question about all those open polls, for example); but legally those reasons are irrelevant IMO. Unless Im convinced otherwise and Im open to arguments, though those Ive seen thus far are weak I plan to vote not guilty.

Joe Harker · Jul 21, 2007

Also why is it that we are doing this now, when there isn't much we can do about, why didn't someone say, "Joe, when do you plan to play the save on Monday", yes i know they shouldn't really have to do that but we should be correcting mistakes, not punishing them, especially since this is the demoGAME.

I could see why you would punish someone who has done something wrong, and too their own benefit, but where have i benefitted from this?

Plus as Bertie says, there is nowhere in our laws that you have to play 24 hours after the stay has been lifted

fed1943 · Jul 21, 2007

All posts until now, reinforce my conviction:

One rule was broken AND Joe Harker is not guilty.

One rule was broken, because the advice was not clear enough and should
have been.

So, the defender action was cause (or one among the causes) of one illegal
consequence.

But, while necessary, this is not enough to deem anyone as guilty.

The DP, here defender, just followed the saying of the Court, point by point;
that said Court's words are legal or not (and we must deem them as legal
until the Court says otherwise) is totally irrelevant; DP must not and can not
to control Judiciary acts.

To be more clear: the DP is a subordinate to the citizens, to the Court, to
the Chieftain, to the Warlord, to each Aimag. His duty is to follow their
instructions, not to question them.

As DP, the defender acted with the diligence and care of a "bonus
paterfamilias" , a normal,honest, good person in his situation.

He is not not guilty, not responsible, for any consequences of his act, that
is nothing more than put into the objective realm a Court mandate.

To decide the opposite would be very unfair to Joe Harker and would break
the trust any citizen needs to have on a legal Court.

Best regards,

ravensfire · Jul 21, 2007

A mistake was made, and not owned up to in a timely manner.

Yup, donsig tends to push things a bit far, but so did other people in this same matter. It's depressing that we actually have to do this - this entire situation shouldn't have been needed if people had shown some respect, and failing that, some patience.

Joe Harker screwed up, but it's tough to decide if a law was broken. The spirit certainly wasn't followed.

-- Ravenfire

Nobody · Jul 21, 2007

It was a off line session and all instructions were in long before game play began. Its the Officials job to post valid instructions not the designated players.
Didn't everything turn out ok anyway? (or did we lose the war).

The person who filled this investigation only did it because he couldn't find any other way to fight the Poll-investigation battle and he has a need to win the argument. If its about enforcing the law, didn't someone play the game forward recently and Donsig didn't investigate that.

It was joes first time being a DP in a time where volenteers are short for all positions. This isn't a way to keep people in the game, running them through the meat grinder when they make a tiny mistake and no one was actually affected just for donsigs dodgy agenda.

ordinaryguy · Jul 22, 2007

Bertie said:
Although I sympathize with donsigs general position, I believe the suit he has brought is wrongly founded.

As I understand it the essential question is whether Joe Harker failed to provide adequate notice of when he intended to play the first turnchat of the 5th term.

I believe the facts are that on July 3rd Joe posted he would play an offline turnchat on Friday July 6th at 1300 BST (+1GMT).

24 hours later donsig posted in the TCIT that he had requested a poll invalidation review and asked that the turnchat be delayed.

Subsequent to that Lockesdonkey posted that he granted this stay of gameplay session, effective 4:04 PM EDT, July 4, 2007. The save shall not be played until the Judicial Review into the poll in question is complete, or until the Court lifts the stay.

On July 8th, Ori, posted The court has ruled to lift the stay on the current Turnchat immediately - the TC can now be played at the DP's discretion. Not defined is what the current Turnchat is. I think a reasonable assumption is the current Turnchat is the one scheduled for July 6th at 1300 BST.

About 14 hours later on July 9th Joe posted Ok starting now unless anyone objects. He then proceeded to play the first turnchat of Term 5 - originally scheduled to be played on July 6th at 1300 BST but in fact commenced 3 days later. The fact that it began 3 days later wasnt because of delay on his part but because of judicial mandate. As soon as the Judiciary lifted its stay and suggested he play at his discretion, he did so. I submit that the turnchat that Joe played on July 9th is the same turnchat that he planned to play on July 6th; and clearly he gave more than 24 hour notice for that.

The case against Joe seems to be premised on the assumption that because the turnchat was delayed by Judicial fiat, any subsequent play must therefore be a new turnchat - where in our laws is this stated? thus requiring a new 24 hours notice of play. I suggest this is an incorrect assumption for the reasons Ive expressed above. All of the verbiage about when is Monday night? is largely irrelevant IMO because proper notice had already been given.

Now, there may be lots of other reasons why the turnchat shouldnt have been played as quickly as it was (and thats where a lot of my sympathy for donsigs position lies; theres that question about all those open polls, for example); but legally those reasons are irrelevant IMO. Unless Im convinced otherwise and Im open to arguments, though those Ive seen thus far are weak I plan to vote not guilty.

I agree that Joe Harker is not guilty.

Repeating your point, the laws do not say that a DP has to play at least 24 hours after the Court's investigation. The laws do say that a DP has to give an advance notice of minimum 24 hours but they did not include any clause about what to do if the turnchat was delayed by Judicial intervention.

Plus the Court gave Joe permission to play at his own discretion, and the Chieftain and the Deputy of Western Aimag wished him well in his first turnchat. What was he to do? Delay the turnchat for 24 hours? Apparently, there was no need to. All the instructions were in and he did not break the laws (due to the unnoticed flaw as mentioned above).

If there aren't any more concrete arguments about this, I would hold fast to my stand and vote NOT guilty.

HUSch · Jul 22, 2007

I think, that the DP has the office to do, what we want. And what we want is in the TC fred. My question is only, has Joe did that or not?
I can't see, that he has did something wrong (i would do the same, i play in GermanWebringTeam as DP), but the law may see it other.

This trial is not about the question, if our wishes were in the TC-fred or not, and when not, why. My reading here show me, it is more a way to reopening the case donsig against DaveShack (You hit the sack and means the donkey). But this case is closed and should be.

btw
I hope my language is clear enough.

donsig · Jul 22, 2007

Bertie said:
Now, there may be lots of other reasons why the turnchat shouldnt have been played as quickly as it was (and thats where a lot of my sympathy for donsigs position lies; theres that question about all those open polls, for example); but legally those reasons are irrelevant IMO. Unless Im convinced otherwise and Im open to arguments, though those Ive seen thus far are weak I plan to vote not guilty.

Those reasons are not irrelevant. The game play scheduling initiative was put forward in order to prevent the save from being played in situations like this. By legally forcing the DP to give 24 hours notice of when the save is to be played citizens and officials are given a fair opportunity to give appropriate input. We were denied that opportunity. Even though the judicary wrongly (illegally?) alluded that the save could be played as soon as the stay was lifted, the DP was still bound by the game play scheduling initiative. And giving notice to play the save on July 6 cannot in seriousness be considered to count as notice for a session played days later.

The People vs. Joe Harker

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