Cool concept; lots of valence to each question:

- What counts as "in the park"

- What counts as a "vehicle"

- If it is both a vehicle and in the park, is justified?

- Is a justified violation of the rules still to be considered a violation?

> Is a justified violation of the rules still to be considered a violation?

This is mentioned on the page:

> answer the question of whether the rule is violated (not whether the violation should be allowed)

I guess the rule is kept intentionally ambiguous as to test what each person thinks should pass.

I personally answered "not breaking the rule" to emergency vehicles and second-guessed the skateboard and bike ones.

If I were to rephrase the rule, I'd write it as "No motorized vehicles in the park unless for emergencies". This way you have less ambiguity for justification.

> No motorized vehicles in the park unless for emergencies

Well, let's play "what is emergency in the park" now. This is a game about language and rules. It consists of 27 questions, but after the first seven, you can skip to the end.

The game does not say "motorized" or "emergencies". But then it does not say "functional" or "full-size", or several other things, either.

I've only pointed out that GP created a new ambiguity as a result of their effort to resolve all ambiguities.

But the game wasn't asking what your preferred rule is? It was only asking whether they break the stated rule, which a police car or ambulance plainly do.

I wonder if there is a correlation between "soft-hearted" and "hard-hearted" voters and their answers to the questions. I regard myself as soft-hearted, but answered the questions as literally as I could as that was given explicitly as part of the rules of the game.

I don't think heartedness is particularly relevant, I think it comes down to whether you are able to evaluate logical propositions dispassionately.

I think calling it a "rule" with a "violation" is bringing in some emotional baggage that some people can't see past.

If instead of "does this violate the rule?" the game simply asked "is this a vehicle in the park?" the disagreement would be resolved.

Some people seem to interpret "does this violate the rule?" as asking something more like "is this a vehicle that shouldn't be in the park?", even though the rule doesn't say anything about "should".

> If ... the game simply asked "is this a vehicle in the park?" the disagreement would be resolved.

But the question is not "is this a vehicle in the park," it's "whether or not this situation constitutes 'a vehicle in the park' for the sole purpose of what was the lawmakers' intent when they made a 'no vehicles in the park' rule."

A toy vehicle in the park most definitely is "a vehicle in the park." But prohibiting toys in the park most definitely wasn't the lawmakers' intent.

A toy vehicle is not a vehicle though.

If you think a toy vehicle is a vehicle then you should have answered that the toy car violated the rule.

Nope, I think that toy vehicle is a vehicle, but it does not violate the intent of the rule.

But nothing in the game asks about intent.

More generally, I think that this game is about jurisprudence in general, and interpretation of laws in particular. It’s not about mathematics or group theory. If it was framed as “in preparation for your PhD in statistics, you need to count 1 for each instance of ‘vehicle in the park’ group” I would count 1 for toy vehicle in the park. And for many more, too.

The way the game is framed as “interpretation of the law,” it includes the supposed intent of the law.

> I personally answered "not breaking the rule" to emergency vehicles

> You might know of some rule in your jurisdiction which overrides local rules, and allows certain classes of vehicles. Please disregard these rules; the park isn't necessarily in your jurisdiction.

The game is entirely about what constitutes "a vehicle" and what constitutes "in the park", it explicitly instructs against "what do I personally think should be allowed in the park".

> Is a justified violation of the rules still to be considered a violation

I think this is key. Having a tank, even if it is nonfunctional and being used as a war memorial is still a vehicle and should be banned unless an exception granted.

Otherwise you'll end up with a hundred "tanks" in the park because they are "allowed". This is one of the things that people who want to slash red tape don't seem to get. Just because it was difficult to get one going doesn't mean that we should cut the red tape. Perhaps we don't actually want/need 27 instances of it.

The fact that you might get a hundred tanks in the park if they are allowed and that that would be bad is not the reason that a tank in the park violates the rule.

The reason a tank in the park violates the rule is because a tank is a vehicle and the rule is "no vehicles in the park".

I don't think I said that.

The tank violates the rule and it is why it isn't allowed.

However there is a scenario (such as the war memorial,or an ambulance) where you may want the vehicle to have access.

I was just relating it to people who claim to want to "cut red tape/remove regulations" because most of the time the red tape scenarios are these where we want to be able to carve out exceptions for particular scenarios. But we still don't want it to be the default position.

> If it is both a vehicle and in the park, is justified?

This is explicitly irrelevant, the game makes this clear.

The game makes it clear, but the interpretation is still a result of what view on "violation" the user brings (as people are saying in other comment threads, not everyone views a "justfied violation" as a subcategory of "violation", but rather as a subcategory of "not violation").

The whole point is -- to you this is extremely clear, along one axis of interpretation. To other people it may be extremely clear along another; the issue is those two "obvious" interpretations don't actually align.

You're bringing in a whole load of baggage that isn't actually there.

Rule: no vehicles in the park.

A vehicle in the park violates the rule. If it's a vehicle, and it's in the park, it violates the rule.

Anything else you're assuming should be added to this comes from your own experiences, not from the problem statement.

It's not irrelevant just because of the phrasing. People judge rules based on intention, and even more so with the rules they are already familiar with.

But the game tells you not to do that!

> If it is both a vehicle and in the park, is justified?

> Is a justified violation of the rules still to be considered a violation? reply

Given the introductory text, neither is relevant:

> You might know of some rule in your jurisdiction which overrides local rules, and allows certain classes of vehicles. Please disregard these rules; the park isn't necessarily in your jurisdiction. Or perhaps your religion allows certain rules to be overridden. Again, please answer the question of whether the rule is violated (not whether the violation should be allowed).

The choice of names (Tyrone vs Brett) made me wonder whether this was an experiment about racial prejudice.

If only there was an exhaustive explanation offered answering this exact question after the quizz.

> I don't yet have enough data to give an answer on whether the names affect anything, but stay tuned

It would be interesting if the puzzle chose to use stereotypically male, female, black or white names at random and the puzzle-setter logged and analyzed the effect this had on the responses. Perhaps they are working on it already?

This felt very easy. And yes, a police car in the park violates the rule, but police are allowed to violate rules in certain cases.

> This felt very easy.

There's no right or wrong answers, so can it really be easy?

Yesn't

The only difficult ones are where reasonable people can disagree on whether it is a "vehicle". Like the rowing boat or the bicycle, or whether "wagon" refers to a little platform or a lorry.

Otherwise it comes down to "is it a vehicle?" and "is it in the park?". There are comments from people saying they said that a police car or ambulance was not a vehicle in the park because it had a good reason to be there, which to me makes no sense at all.

The game makes very clear that it is not "would you allow this vehicle in the park?" but "is this a vehicle in the park?".

> "is it a vehicle?" and "is it in the park?"

I don't think these are trivial questions at all. There's no sound definition of a vehicle.

If your definition depends on transporting humans than a wagon or even self-driving truck is not a vehicle. If your definition depends on transporting goods in a self-propelled manner than humans are vehicles.

That's fine, that's not the crux of the disagreement that this game generates.

The disagreement is that some people think a police car is not a vehicle in the park, because its presence in the park is justified.

I think that's more just a product of them not reading the instructions.

Elsewhere in this thread you can find:

> not everyone views a "justfied violation" as a subcategory of "violation", but rather as a subcategory of "not violation"

That is indeed a person who did not, can not, or will not read instructions.

[delayed]

My exact thought. Ambulances and police cars are vehicles. And they would violate the rules. But some rules sometimes can be violated under certain circumstances.

Same thing about the WW2 tank that's not working. A vehicle that doesn't work is still a vehicle.

Also all the questions about verticality at least under my jurisprudence land is only owned vertically up to a certain extent after that is considered state property to be administered by authorities.

>>Same thing about the WW2 tank that's not working. A vehicle that doesn't work is still a vehicle.

Well no, it specifically says it's a memorial - at that point it's a statue, like an art installation, especially if the tank is non functional(bonus question - what if it was never an actual tank in the first place, it's just some metal bent to look like a tank?). If the memorial was of a Napoleonic soldier on a horse, you wouldn't say it violates a "no weapons allowed" rule just because the statue is holding a sword.

If it's metal bent to look like a tank then it's not a vehicle.

If it's a real tank that just happens not to work any more then it's a vehicle even if it as a monument as well.

> Same thing about the WW2 tank that's not working. A vehicle that doesn't work is still a vehicle.

That completely depends on your definition of a vehicle. According to your definition an object that once met the conditions to be a vehicle will always be a vehicle. You can apply Theseus's ship to the WW2 tank replacing it's parts and then at what point does it seize to be a vehicle?

If your definition on vehicle depends on transporting humans than a wagon seizes to be a vehicle. If your definition depends on transporting objects in a self-propelled way than humans become vehicles.

> police are allowed to violate rules in certain cases.

Probably more relevant, such services usually get legal carve outs for purpose.

But the game specifically instructs the player to ignore any such consideration.

For Mediterranean people:

"Francesca drives her car into the park with hazards lights on"

Does this violate the rule?

You have to respect the sanctity of park-anywhere button.

Honestly I'm observing a culture shift in the region. People don't use hazard lights that often anymore but instead they're loudly and expressively speaking with their phone. As in saying "I can do whatever I'm doing, because I'm too busy with an important conversation".

How else would you Uber Eats your picnic?

The game specifically instructs to disregard justification, overrides, carve-outs, etc...

It only asks two questions, strictly: is it a vehicle, and is it in the park.

So yes, francesca's car being a vehicle and in the park is a violation.

> It only asks two questions, strictly: is it a vehicle, and is it in the park.

no, it asks if the rule is violated in each situation

And what, pray tell, is the rule about?

> So yes, francesca's car being a vehicle and in the park is a violation.

I think you missed their joke :) the joke is that in europe (hence the Mediterranean) people often use "hazards on" as a justification for parking / stopping anywhere, especially where they aren't allowed to.

I didn't miss the joke, the joke missed the point.

I thought this was about AI alignment. But the analogy could still work

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i really liked this small project :) made me think.

Did anyone tried jev on this?

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The bigger issue with moderation as exemplified by the comments is it's very easy to come up with posts that skirt the law.

Well, I would say that most of the questions are very well chosen to highlight the intricacies of moderation, as evidenced by the fact that the only question where over 90% agree that it definitely violates the rule is someone driving their personal car into the park. All of the others are below 65%, because you could make an argument that they should be excepted for every one of them:

- police car and ambulance: definitely reasonable exceptions (the only thing that surprised me is that slightly more people would allow the police car than the ambulance)

- memorial: you could argue that a static vehicle installed as a memorial does not count as a vehicle anymore.

- rowboats: if there is a lake in the park, and if there are rowboats on the lake, you would assume that it's allowed to use them?

etc. etc.

> ... please answer the question of whether the rule is violated (not whether the violation should be allowed).

For me this clearly means police cars and ambulances violate the rule. Maybe violating the rule is ok, but that doesn't mean they don't violate it.

> For me this clearly means police cars and ambulances violate the rule.

From a purely logical viewpoint (think; mathematics or programming, et cetera), that's absolutely true. In programming you'd have to do a properly coded `if/else if/else/finally` type situation or somesuch to allow the ambulance and/or police, otherwise the rule is violated by any vehicle that's not been explicitly allowed.

From a data management point of view, I have a similar question about a hypothetical sign that reads "Customer parking only"

- Am I a customer when I go into the shop?

- How about if I don't buy anything this time?

- When I receive a marketing email from the shop, based on my previous purchases, am I still a customer?

- How about 1 year later and I haven't bought anything, am I still a customer?

So when can I park there?

(obviously in the real world, there would be terms and conditions, but it's an interesting way to talk to clients about definitions in their data)

It's the classic "no parking after midnight" sign, which obviously means you can never park there.

…this ALWAYS bothered me ever since I first saw Gremlins as a kid.

How early in the morning can I feed them? Dude never says!

Definitely not if you live or work in the area and will leave your car there for 8+ hours.

Maybe not if you have an appointment and will be there for an hour.

If you’re there for 15 minutes, open season.

> (obviously in the real world, there would be terms and conditions, but it's an interesting way to talk to clients about definitions in their data)

Not necessarily, you can't apply terms and conditions to a sign. But original intent does matter, you can reason over why the shop owners put the sign there in the first place. Which is likely to allow their customers to park while making a purchase.

[delayed]

Not interesting even as a thought experiment. From context, "vehicle" is clearly inferred to mean "automobile" rather than literally"vehicle". All of the subsequent pedantry then fails to miss the point. It is weird how one can be so pedantic and yet fail to draw the obvious connection that the word is effectively substituted for a different word in context.

> From context, "vehicle" is clearly inferred to mean "automobile" rather than literally "vehicle".

From what context? At no point does the game say that, and from both the questions and the epilogue it's made clear that the game is about finding edge cases for what passes as "a vehicle" and "in the park".

The context of being a human and living in a society, which may perhaps be described as "common sense". The game references a real law disallowing motorized equipment. It then substituted a precise verbiage commonly used in the real world to an imprecise verbiage for the game. As humans, we naturally autocorrect their imprecise mistake and hone in on the intended precision, even unconsciously. It says nothing about whether any of the things are vehicles. Boats and bicycles are obviously vehicles. But, in the context of the question, anybody with common sense is inferring the intended meaning of automobiles that such a rule is intended to prohibit. In fact this is not limited to humans. Even compilers are capable of this, operating on a subtype when you pass an overly broad type to them in the right context.

The general interpretation of laws in countries with British-derived legal systems is that firstly, words have the meaning given by a standard legal definition or one explicitly referenced in the legislation, and otherwise words have their literal meaning unless they are ambiguous. If they are ambiguous, then the meaning is usually taken to be that of the notional "reasonable man".

In this case, "vehicle" is defined by Wikipedia (and most other reference works) as "a machine designed for self-propulsion, usually to transport people, cargo, or both", but even that is ambiguous. Whether skateboards, toy cars, horse, surfboards etc. meet these definitions is the kind of ambiguity the quiz is looking for.

The problem I'm pointing out here is that it fails to actually explore that ambiguity. The majority cleanly decide that the 3 automobiles are out and everything else is in. There is interesting ambiguity, but it gets thrown out by the context; the context dictates things that are unambiguously vehicles, like boats and bicycles, are actually not violating the rule, because the rule in context actually means automobiles. You cannot explore the ambiguity around the meaning of "vehicle" with a context that dictates you actually meant automobile. At most you can make a point about type theory and type inference, but that was not the point the game was trying to make.

If "vehicle" here clearly means "automobile" _to you_, then that just proves the point the game is trying to make because the results show that it does not clearly mean that to everyone.

In terms of the majority answer, there is a clean break between the three automobiles and everything else. This is what's known as "having common sense". It is this common sense that leads the majority to answer that a bicycle is not violating the rule. Is that because they believe, in their heart of hearts, that a bicycle is not a vehicle? Could it truly be that 55% of people don't know what a vehicle is? Or is it because they are capable of inferring from context that vehicle was an imprecise supertype and the rule clearly referred to subtype automobiles?

How do you come to the conclusion that vehicle here means automobile? This thought has not even crossed my mind

I think the most interesting finding from this is that some people experience their sense of what should be allowed so strongly that it blinds their sense of whether a particular action technically violates a particular rule.

> You agreed with the majority: 100%

Yeah, but the majority is sane. There are only 3 vehicles in the park.

This was an awful experience on mobile fwiw

I wonder if the averages would move if it said “you are a policeman and your performance will be judged based on your decisions”.

To me a vehicle carries a human or goods on the ground and movement is generated via mechanical action, powered by either by a motor or a human being. Motorbike, car, cycle, rowboat. Pushing or pulling the object without a mechanism does not count as these are just extensions of 'pedestrian', buggy, wagon, skateboard, ice skates. If it does not carry a human it does not count. Toy car, drone. If it is not touching the park, it is not 'on the park'. Commercial airliner, ISS. A non functioning object that used to be a vehicle is now art or a monument, so long it has been approved to be in the park as such. Otherwise it is littering.

Emergency vehicles are exempt, like police or ambulance.

To me this shows how even a simple prompt can be complicated. Not necessarily in the context of content moderation, but in general.

I've been working as a software developer for a while now, and this feels a lot like when a customer says I want feature A and I have to ask 20 more questions to filter out edge-cases the customer hadn't thought of yet.

Interesting that less than half of people think a cycle is a vehicle. In the UK it is legally a vehicle and the rider has to obey all the rules that other vehicles have to obey, road signs, speed limits, red lights etc.

Conceptually very interesting and revealing, but I found it frustrating being forced to binarize the outcome without sufficient context (ill-posed). A lot of those questions have both valid yes and no answers, depending on the context.

I jumped at this because I I've been thinking about clarifying rules a lot. Actually, I have been thinking about clarifying beliefs but it's similar.

When someone tells you what they believe in they might think it is clear but a little digging will show how ambiguous any moral or religious proclamation is.

I have been trying hard to figure out a way to force people to be explicit about their beliefs. What I came up with is https://forgemybeliefs.etewiah.workers.dev/. Would love some feedback about how I can improve it.

What's with the "trial" ness of it? It's a bit weird. Since you're on Cloudflare you're fitting in their free plan, so why make it seem like a subscription thing that costs money when there's no facility for that? Also the overemphasis on having no account is weird.

I hit the page and started typing an answer into the box without reading any of the rest of the page. "THE BUNDLE YOU WERE HANDED" was rather presumptuous. It seems you could just ask those five questions as agree disagree from 1-5 like every other psychology test and not use any AI.

The game tries to make the case that the problem with the rule "no vehicles in the park" isn't underspecification, but I feel it misses some important dimensions when it does that. Specifically, it only looks at specifying the subject of the rule i.e. what constitutes a vehicle. It doesn't consider the intent behind the rule, or the balance of interests affected by the rule's application.

Replace the rule with its intent - the grass shouldn't be damaged - and its balance of interests - the grass's short-term wellbeing should take less precedence than a person's - and you get a claim that is pretty straightforward to evaluate.

Instead of defending blanket propositions, perhaps content moderation should defend predicates - does X harm property Y? - and weights - does X injure Z?

Is this variation still subject to ambiguity? I don't know - I think it's subject to bias, but it's pretty much unambiguous.

Ah, content moderation policy again. I guess I'll take my shot at mentioning the Something Awful forums. For specific background: you had to pay a one-time fee of $10 to register and bans were handed out early and often. It was capricious and the policy amounted to "if I think you're causing trouble, you're gone". Overuse of memes, whining, etc were all fair targets.

For people who hold free speech as a cherished principle, this is abhorrent. But it (and other forums following suit) encouraged a more resilient Internet, IMO. The Internet was an archipelago of forums. You had to sign up individually and each had their own culture. And there were just some places you just. didn't. go. Stormfront's trash stayed over there and everyone liked it that way.

Then skip ahead in time: we have Reddit's Big Tent free speech approach and now we have to see if a skateboard is a vehicle. Moderation is a thankless unpaid job and the support just isn't there. Sometimes people are dragging your community/site into the sewer except all you have are downvotes, which are a total joke. It's just feeding the trolls. Hey, it wasn't an explicit call to violence against specific people so you can say whatever you want!

Is a skateboard a vehicle? I dunno. But if it's a private park at private expense and all non-skateboarders have left because they felt uncomfortable being there, it doesn't really matter.