I'm Officially Confused

[Jason_C]

Can someone please tell me the exact definition of the word "official" when referring to sources on Yu-Gi-Oh! rules, policies, and etiquette?

I've been hearing a lot of talk about it, and I'd like to understand more what people are saying. The Judges' List is not an official source of rulings, correct? But it IS an official source of policy updates, etc, correct?

 

[Jason_C]

Threads get locked because of trolling (in attempt to prevent them from degrading to blatant flaming).

The following is an example of trolling:

At every turn you've tried to deconstruct my statements by attacking them from a standpoint that I'm not taking. If I thought you were doing that deliberately, I would say you were making a Straw Man argument.

Why is this trolling?

1) Because it claims I made a fallacy in my logic, without supporting evidence.

2) Because it uses a winking emoticon to imply an arrogant victory. It says "Haha, you got pwned by your own words!", without grounds to support it.

DJ please support your position that he used Straw Man incorrectly. Your last post appears to be trolling.

Yes, really.

On that note, I am done with this thread. I shall not continue to feed the trolls. When DJ shows me his reasoning for what he said, I will return to debate further. If anyone would like to lock this thread now, they'd probably be wise.

 

[DarkLogicianOfCaos]

Before anyone gets to locking....could someone in the know please answer my question in #57 ? You ahve to get past the tongue-in-cheek, but there is a legitimate question there......please? Inquiring minds really want to know. What would/does/could happen?

 

[John Danker]

While Kevin is the head of rules for UDE, there are other (Alex Charsky) who are head of oganized play and yet others (Ian Estrin) who are head of volunteer help. These are likely to be the individuals who would address isssues concerning poor judge perfomance.

Any judge who rules contradictory to a FAQ or judge list ruling should be prepared to defend his ruling in detail and if it's not a player managment question be prepared to explain the mechanics behind it.

It would be my guess that the individual in question would be questioned about their call and corrected if need be. Continued defiance of FAQ and judge list posting rulings could very well be grounds for dismissal from the judge program. I know of stores that have been banned from holding UDE sanctioned tournaments for not following policy guidelines, I'm guessing individual judges can certainly suffer a similar concequence.

 

[ygo doc]

How about the fact that UDE cannot edit the FAQ, their own website, without approval by Konami.

Surely if UDE had the power to present rulings then they would have that ability...

UDE does have the power to Edit their own FAQ and they do so regularly. If you've been reading the messages here, you know they can do that.

To have NEW rulings placed on the FAQ usually requires approval from Konami.

HOWEVER, ALL OF YOU SHOULD REMEMBER THIS!
At all the Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships, it is UDE judges that rule according to the UDE FAQ, UDE tournament policy, the UDE Forbidden Card List, and the UDE TCG card base!

doc

 

[anthonyj]

How about the fact that UDE cannot edit the FAQ, their own website, without approval by Konami.

Surely if UDE had the power to present rulings then they would have that ability.

We're all aware of the fact that Konami must "approve" of any "official" ruling posted on the website. The issue is not whether they have "final say", the issue is that Konami gives them:
1) The authority to be the ones to decide how things are ruled in sanctioned tournaments.
2) The authority to maintain the website and post the rulings that are approved by Konami.
3) The exclusive authority to get clarification on the rulings and errata for the game from the source (Konami), and distribute this information to the TCG.

So while not "official" by Konami's preference for keeping that title exclusively, they are the sole resource we have contact with to ask questions and hopefully get the correct answers. Obviously as far as who has the "final word" on how the game should work that is Konami. But the Judge's List does have credibility as they are the ones getting the information from Konami.

While I will agree that if there is a logical argument why you feel a ruling (whether from Konami or UDE) is incorrect it should certainly be posted so that there can be discussion and possibly an opportunity for the matter to be brought to UDE for clarification that it was not a mistake, I disagree with the statement that if the Judge's List contradicts the "Official" ruling it should be ignored because we have many instances where the Judge's List was the first place the information had been clarified that the FAQ was in error.

A) Errata /= Ruling.
B) They claimed specificallly to have information on how it works. There's a huge difference between doing that and jsut making a ruling.

But how do you determine which rulings have been from actual discussion with Konami and which discussions are just how the UDE rep decided to rule it?

Yes, not every ruling from Konami is on the website. There are "books" with rulings we don't have. However we have no way of knowing which rulings are in those books, and so we do not know if there are any rulings relevant to any one card in those books. So when the Judge List makes a ruling you can only assume that its made with the information available to us, because you have no proof that there is more information, (That's Burden of Proof). And so if we can use all of the information available to us to prove their ruling incorrect, the ruling is incorrect.

I find that absolutely riveting. I was of the understanding that Konami did not have "books" of rulings and that was one of the reasons the JERP was created in Japan. Who has access to these "books" of rulings? Are the rulings from Takahashi himself, are they a compilation of the Japanese rulings as handed down from reps at Konami?

They don't have a magic button that brings up all the relevant rulings, and only the relevant rulings to make a ruling on a specific situation.

Of course, if and only if the Judge List claims specifically that they have more information on the issue, than we don't have the ability to prove them incorrect.

And nobody has said that they did (okay Kevin might, but nobody here is claiming they have all the answers). So in order for you to believe a ruling posted on the Judge's List are you asking for Kevin himself to write up the process used to determine the ruling (i.e. "I contacted Konami about this issue and this is what they told me." or "In my opinion, and I haven't confirmed this with Konami, this is how it should work.") We aren't likely to get a "Thus sayeth Konami" tagline for rulings on the Judge's List any more than we are likely to get all necessary rulings to be able to rule appropriately posted to the FAQ.

Nothing in this game is "set it stone unquestionable", Konami and UDE have changed things before and will likely do so again with little acknowledgment that there has even been a change. The environment they have fostered has been one of not putting anything more than the most basic information in print in any form. The website has seen stealth changes to the "official" rulings for years. We've all seen mistakes made and done our best to get them corrected. For our purposes the Judge's List is an important resource because there isn't another source for rulings that have not been provided in the FAQ. The text is known to be flawed and unreliable due to the translation process. Holding text to have greater weight than the Judge's List is simply not a proven concept.

The Judge's List makes the rulings that you have to play by to win any Regional, National or SJC. Until we've all got access to these "books" of rulings from Konami that will continue to be the way things have to be.

 

[DarkLogicianOfCaos]

Thank you John. I know that issues come up often in the level 3 list that don't get answered (or are debatable) by UDE, I also know that for the most part y'all try to defer to the judge list, even if you disagree, if it is a disputable point. It goes to show that there is OFFICIAL (Konami) and Official (UDE FAQ). But to a great extent, while we would hesitate to call them "official", we could call the Judge List "authoritative". Since they are the ones to reckon with in case of a dispute, yes?

<edit> after seeing what Anthony posted, while I typing (slowly), some of this has been addressed, so please bear with me. <end edit>

<elaboration by example> America is a Constitutional Society, with laws at the local level, that are appelant to the State level and further to the National level, but only as far as it is determined to be contrary to the Constitution. While none can be considered "official" for law (precidence, yes, but until the voter's say so--but that is a different matter), certainly each has greater authority and must be abided by as surely as if it were official, until something official can come down the pike from the highest court. Likewise, the floor judge interprets to his/her best ability, with an appeal to the Head Judge. If, however, there is a disagreement, there may be an appeal to UDE proper for the interpretation of the constitutionality of the ruling (based on FAQ), but in extreme cases. I suppose that after that, there can always be a phone call placed to Konami for the fianl rendering of the rules, but whose Japanese is that good?

While it would be careless to esteem the Judge List as "official", as they do not even claim that, is it not fair to esteem them as authoritative, the highest court? They are still the GOTO people for disputes, are they not? Or do the level 3s all consider them equal to themselves in authority of interpretation? Do they have that connection to Konami, whereby they can claim that authority? I know that some are volunteers for UDE, but one assumes, maybe erroniously, that they have some sort of accountability to give the answer in the name of UDE (thereby the authority thereof)--without returning, of course, to the old discussion of fallability.

It is very helpful to us of the lower level judgeships to get this stright as to the higherarchy. All in all, I follow my Head Judge, but I have a good one. If I am head judging, I would like to know how this all works out.

Thak you in advance for your wise and gentle counsel.

 

[DaGuyWitBluGlasses]

But how do you determine which rulings have been from actual discussion with Konami and which discussions are just how the UDE rep decided to rule it?

We can't, so then it becomes the Judge List burden of Proof to say so.

I find that absolutely riveting. I was of the understanding that Konami did not have "books" of rulings and that was one of the reasons the JERP was created in Japan. Who has access to these "books" of rulings? Are the rulings from Takahashi himself, are they a compilation of the Japanese rulings as handed down from reps at Konami?

Before it was errata'd to nomi Kevin mentioned the XYZ ruling is in a book in tokyo. (So something written by Konami and not a compilation of things handed down.)

The Judge's List makes the rulings that you have to play by to win any Regional, National or SJC. Until we've all got access to these "books" of rulings from Konami that will continue to be the way things have to be.

Just a reminder:
There's a link to ww.yugioh-card.com in the rulebook.

There's no way for players to be "expected" to know about the judge list.

That's the biggest reason it will always be the fairest thing to go by the ruling posted at yugioh-card.com whenever possible.

 

[anthonyj]

We can't, so then it becomes the Judge List burden of Proof to say so.

Kevin has stated that he does in fact communicate with Konami regarding the rulings and how the game is played. Kevin has even gone as far as to make claims that Konami has things wrong with a particular ruling and we won't be playing that way here and hopefully they'll get the Japanese ruling corrected. That, to me, is pretty plain that Kevin considers himself to have stewardship of the TCG rules environment and while he may certainly be given information from Konami that he has gotten something wrong and he needs to correct it he himself sees his rulings as authoritative.

Before it was errata'd to nomi Kevin mentioned the XYZ ruling is in a book in tokyo. (So something written by Konami and not a compilation of things handed down.)

I believe he did state that the Dimension Fusion ruling was an old ruling from OCG that preceeded errata of XYZ but that the ruling itself had not been corrected and thus it was passed through to us as an error. But then we come to find out that XYZ was in fact not a nomi monster after all and the Dimension Fusion ruling was correct. So did Kevin make the whole backstory up to explain why there was a clear discrepancy in the FAQ for so long, or did Konami actually forget that XYZ could be brought back from out of play until the XYZ monsters were looked at again for VWXYZ?

In either case if that is the only mention of "books" of rulings I'd say that would be a questionable source for that information as obviously the situation itself was filled with inaccurate information being passed back and forth.

Just a reminder:
There's a link to ww.yugioh-card.com in the rulebook.

There's no way for players to be "expected" to know about the judge list.

That's the biggest reason it will always be the fairest thing to go by the ruling posted at yugioh-card.com whenever possible.

There also is no link to Tournament Policy documents in the rulebook. That does not mean that they aren't important for tournament play. We are all aware of the inadequacy of the rulebook in properly instructing players about what they will need to know in order to play the game properly.

 

[masterwoo0]

How about the fact that UDE cannot edit the FAQ, their own website, without approval by Konami.

Okay, this is sooooo wrong, I can't even ascertain where this statement could have been contrived from.

When Enemy of Justice came out, UDE posted in the FAQ that Majestic Mech - Ohka, Majestic Mech - Senku, and Majestic Mech - Goryu were destroyed at the End Phase of the turn they were Summoned without Tribute (Ohka), Summoned with 1 Tribute (Goryu), "Summoned" (Senku).

I personally pointed this out to Dan Scheidegger, and his reply was...

================================================
daniel_scheidegger@upperdeck.com


Thanks for pointing this out. I will fix the rulings on the web page to say "sent to the Graveyard".

- The Moderator

---

From: "James Johnson" <masterwoo0@gmail.com>
To: judge-yu
Subject: Majestic Mech's and "Destroyed" at End Phase....
Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 07:43:30 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-LYRIS-Recency:

I'm confused.

When I read the card text of Majestic Mech - Ohka, Senku, and Goryu, the all state that if they are summoned by their effect or merely "summoned", the controller will "send" them to Graveyard at the End Phase of the turn.

Now, for the longest, we have been hammering into Player's heads that "Send" does not equal "Destroyed", just as "Tribute" does not equal "Destroyed", yet, there it is in the Ruling for all of these monsters that they are DESTROYED at the End Phase of the turn.

Are we now calling cards that are sent from hand by an effect to the Graveyard "destroyed" as well?

Please tell me that this is a mistake in translation....

================================================

Now, through the magic of Dan, the UDE FAQ somehow "changed". Not to mention they also removed the Butterfly Dagger - Elma Ruling that involved Gearfried the Iron Knight versus Really Eternal Rest.

 

[DaGuyWitBluGlasses]

Kevin has stated that he does in fact communicate with Konami regarding the rulings and how the game is played.

-"Does communicate with konami" does not mean
he "checks with konami for every single issue raised on the Judge List."

-There's no evidence to assume that Dan, Steve or Curtis do the same.

Kevin has even gone as far as to make claims that Konami (issued incorrect information) with a particular ruling and we won't be playing that way here and hopefully they'll get the Japanese ruling corrected.

(my insertion)

When Kevin alerts us to a mistake, then he's alerted us to a mistake. It doesn't mean that anything he says could mean a mistake by Konami. It's his burden to specifically say that a mistake has been made.

That, to me, is pretty plain that Kevin considers himself to have stewardship of the TCG rules environment and while he may certainly be given information from Konami that he has gotten something wrong and he needs to correct it he himself sees his rulings as authoritative.

He can't summarily claim that konami has got a specific ruling wrong, but rather, when there is definitely something wrong, his opinion of which ruling is wrong counts.

I.E He prevented a ruling from being posted on UDE's site that contradicts previous rulings, it was his opiniong that the NEW ruling was incorrect, and so that should stand. But similarly he could have just as easily claimed it was the old rulings that were incorrect. And Konami might just as well, decide that the New ruling should be posted and the old rulings erased.

In either case if that is the only mention of "books" of rulings I'd say that would be a questionable source for that information as obviously the situation itself was filled with inaccurate information being passed back and forth.

http://www.pojo.biz/board/showpost.php?p=1993836&postcount=333

There also is no link to Tournament Policy documents in the rulebook. That does not mean that they aren't important for tournament play. We are all aware of the inadequacy of the rulebook in properly instructing players about what they will need to know in order to play the game properly.

Not directly, similarly there isn't directly a link to any of the official pages at yugioh-card.com

But a person can buy a structure deck, visit www.upperdeck.com and find the OP section.

But a search of google will not find the Judge List unless you new what you were looking for. In fact i could only quickly obtain a result from the Judge List by typing in part of the URL.

http://www.upperdeckentertainment.com/op/yugiohop/default.aspx
There's a mention of the official site here, but not of the Judge list.

 

[DaGuyWitBluGlasses]

Now, through the magic of Dan, the UDE FAQ somehow "changed". Not to mention they also removed the Butterfly Dagger - Elma Ruling that involved Gearfried the Iron Knight versus Really Eternal Rest.

They fixed a mistake, the physical characters. They did not edit the intellectual content.

 

[masterwoo0]

They fixed a mistake, the physical characters. They did not edit the intellectual content.

DaGuyWitBluGlasses is quoted to have said:
How about the fact that UDE cannot edit the FAQ, their own website, without approval by Konami.

You can dance all you want, but last time I checked, EDIT means EDIT.

And, "Destroyed versus Sent" is as big a mistake to fix as anything. It's not like it said, "Sestroyed" or "Dent". That is fixing a character. You are changing a Mechanic of the Game with the correction.

 

[slither]

They fixed a mistake, the physical characters. They did not edit the intellectual content.

Wasn't it still a modification nevertheless? A small word can make a huge difference in the way a card or rule can be interpreted, that's one of the things CoG has excelled as well.

 

[anthonyj]

-"Does communicate with konami" does not mean
he "checks with konami for every single issue raised on the Judge List."

-There's no evidence to assume that Dan, Steve or Curtis do the same.

(my insertion)

When Kevin alerts us to a mistake, then he's alerted us to a mistake. It doesn't mean that anything he says could mean a mistake by Konami. It's his burden to specifically say that a mistake has been made.


He can't summarily claim that konami has got a specific ruling wrong, but rather, when there is definitely something wrong, his opinion of which ruling is wrong counts.

I.E He prevented a ruling from being posted on UDE's site that contradicts previous rulings, it was his opiniong that the NEW ruling was incorrect, and so that should stand. But similarly he could have just as easily claimed it was the old rulings that were incorrect. And Konami might just as well, decide that the New ruling should be posted and the old rulings erased.


http://www.pojo.biz/board/showpost.php?p=1993836&postcount=333




Not directly, similarly there isn't directly a link to any of the official pages at yugioh-card.com

But a person can buy a structure deck, visit www.upperdeck.com and find the OP section.

But a search of google will not find the Judge List unless you new what you were looking for. In fact i could only quickly obtain a result from the Judge List by typing in part of the URL.

http://www.upperdeckentertainment.com/op/yugiohop/default.aspx
There's a mention of the official site here, but not of the Judge list.

"On the books" is just an expression. It does not mean there are actual "books".

If all of this is simply an attempt to prevent the use of the Judge's List when discussing card rulings such as Mind Crush it seems like we're just burning up time and wasting effort. Without the Judge's List to clarify it would simply go back to interpretation where you read it one way and others read it differently. We've discussed how JERP rules things in past debates many times, it certainly isn't conclusive to end the discussion of the possibilities but if the Judge's List isn't "good enough" to convince you the only other option is to call Konami. You certainly have the right to disagree with an "Official" ruling posted in the FAQ so what difference does it make that it is posted on the Judge's List. FAQ has been wrong, Judge's List has been wrong, you've been wrong, I've been wrong, just about every single member here has been wrong. If you don't like a ruling and want to discuss it that is fine. But this thread has truly not added any information to the site or anyone's understanding. I've posted in an attempt to clarify for those that don't have as keen an insight or been immersed in the history we are aware of so they would understand how things are defined but we've certainly done that above and beyond. Why are we belaboring this point?

 

[DaGuyWitBluGlasses]

And, "Destroyed versus Sent" is as big a mistake to fix as anything. It's not like it said, "Sestroyed" or "Dent". That is fixing a character. You are changing a Mechanic of the Game with the correction.

The intellectual content is the intent of the message. It doesn't matter how BIG a mistake is, if its an error being corrected its not changing the actual ruling. In other situations a single letter can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Doesn't make it any less of a mistake.

Or if a newspaper corrects a mistake of what they printed, are you going to argue that they somehow changed the events that happened, or simply the text associated with that event.

I explained what i meant, and "Edit" fits what i meant.

You can dance all you want, but last time I checked, EDIT means EDIT.

Indeed it does, but perhaps you need to be taught what "Edit" means.

Normally the "or" (or "er") is added to a word to make the name of a person who does a specific job. But in this case Editor is the older word.

An "Editor" is the person who's overall in charge of a publication, correcting might be part of his/her duties, it might not be, so an Editor isn't necessarily somebody who corrects mistake. The editor makes decisions about what will and won't be printed, and in the case of any non-fiction work, has to make decisions about the truth, i.e. cannot allow non truths to be. The Editor is the one with the Final Say in the matter.

From there English evolved the word "Edit" to talk about doint the job of an editor; to make the decisions necessary to have the final say on the puclication.

Konami is the one with the Final Say on the matter. Konami is the Editor. Konami makes the edits.

UDE fixing a typographical error, or correcting a freudian slip is not a case of "Editing" in this sense of the word.

 

[masterwoo0]

The intellectual content is the intent of the message. It doesn't matter how BIG a mistake is, if its an error being corrected its not changing the actual ruling. In other situations a single letter can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Doesn't make it any less of a mistake.....

Dude... You dont get it, do you? How many card effects can respond to a card being destroyed? This is not merely a slip. It was a Game Mechanic error that needed to be corrected, as it was printed in more than one area. If I say it once, it's a mistake. If I say it twice, it's no longer a mistake, as I should have caught it the second time if I knew the correct statement was actually "Sent". Now, its possibly a belief that can be passed on.

I remember you locked a thread on me because I tried to explain a statement I made, and told me that I was trying to save face. Do yourself a favor and just admit that no matter how many times you toss out the philosophical phrases, you and Jason_C are standing alone in your own world on this issue.

I know longer think it is necessary to even rebutt future comments anymore, as you obviously are unaccepting of anything other than Konami coming to this Website and addressing both of you specifically and saying, "Who Cares? We [UDE and Konami] both make and enforce Rules. We [Konami] just have a bigger role in the creation of Rules!"

This has certainly become "You, against Us", and it's getting really old....

 

[Jason_C]

I remember you locked a thread on me because I tried to explain a statement I made, and told me that I was trying to save face.

That thread was locked because you had been logically proven wrong and would not accept it.

 

[masterwoo0]

That thread was locked because you had been logically proven wrong and would not accept it.

Lets just say what it was and what it is. I chose not to accept either of you as the authority to prove me wrong. Neither of you work for Konami, so therefore, like you and Daguy keep saying, "Why listen, if you arent anyone to listen to?"

 

[Jason_C]

I chose not to accept either of you as the authority to prove me wrong.

So you could use a lesson in the definition of the word "proof" and I haven't the time to give it. For the record, DaGuy and I aren't the ones proving you wrong. We're just the ones demonstrating the proof that already existed. That's what "proof" means.

 

[DaGuyWitBluGlasses]

Dude... You dont get it, do you? How many card effects can respond to a card being destroyed? This is not merely a slip. It was a Game Mechanic error that needed to be corrected, as it was printed in more than one area. If I say it once, it's a mistake. If I say it twice, it's no longer a mistake, as I should have caught it the second time if I knew the correct statement was actually "Sent". Now, its possibly a belief that can be passed on.

Most likely a case of "overregularization,"

When monster are sent to the graveyard as a cost, usually it was because it was tributed. When a monster is sent to the graveyard by an effect usually it was because it was destroyed. WHen we make a word past tense we usually add "ed"

Saying "Destroyed" or "Tributed" is the result of the same mistake that makes people say something like
"My teacher holded the baby rabbits"

the only difference is in the results, not the cause. I.E. an actual word as opposed to a made up word.