Editing Round 9/History (section)

=== Exactly One Pond ===

In another case of seemingly innocuous but poorly conceived rule text once again stemming from the ponds rule (see {{Heading|Stuck Ducks}}). This time, however, the offending text came from the fix proposal, Proposal The Ducks that Time Forgot (moonroof, 19 Feb 2021). "Each duck lives in exactly one pond<ref>https://infinitenomic.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Round_9/Ruleset&oldid=823#Ponds</ref>." The intent of this phrase was that a duck initially had no pond assignment but could be given one. However, the rule text clearly states that ducks cannot live in no pond. So which pond do ducks live in by default? A ruling confirmed that this was ambiguous but that ducks certainly ''did'' live in a pond upon creation.<ref>[[Round 9/Rulings#Ruling 13]]</ref>. Once again ambiguity crept its way into the ruleset. Random Internet Cat promptly wrote a fix for this and some other issues (Proposal Essential v2, 17 Mar 2021).

Due to the ratification on 8 March (see {{Heading|The First Dice Disaster}}, we did have a reference point. All initial pond assignments before 8 March had worked; those after had not. Only ATMunn and Jumble had joined the game since then, thus the uncertainty was minimal. Small enough, at least, that we could just wait it out.