Reorganizing the Laws

[blackshoe]

I had an idea for reorganizing the laws. I know there was some effort to do this during the last iteration, which was scotched by the ACBL, but perhaps they'll be more amenable next time. Anyway, here's a rough (and incomplete) outline:

 

Outline of the Laws of Bridge

 

I.Preliminaries

...1.The Pack

...2.The Duplicate Boards

...3.Arrangement of Tables

...4.Partnerships

...5.Assignment of Seats

II.Preparation and Progression

...1.The Shuffle and Deal

...2.Control of Boards and Cards

...3.Sequence of Rounds

III.Correct Procedure

...1.The Auction Period

...2.The Auction

...3.The Clarification Period

...4.The Play Period

...5.Scoring

IV.Irregularities

...1.General Rules

......1.Procedure Following an Irregularity

......2.Assessment of Rectification

......3.Forfeiture of Right to Rectification

......4.Play of a Wrong Board

......5.Authorized and Unauthorized Information

......6.Score Adjustments

...2.Irregularities During the Auction

...3.Irregularities Discovered During the Clarification Period

...4.Irregularities During the Play

V.The Proprieties

VI.Tournament Organization and Direction

VII.Rulings (I think this might better go earlier in the document, but I'm not sure where)

VIII.Appeals

 

Thoughts?

[Vampyr]

You forgot something at the top -- a table of contents.

[blackshoe]

Oh, I would put in a table of contents, an index, and hyperlinks. Actually, that outline is pretty much a table of contents already. B-)

[Vampyr]

Oh, I would put in a table of contents, an index, and hyperlinks. Actually, that outline is pretty much a table of contents already. B-)

 

Best to make sure to put these things on the list though -- the WBFLC obviously did not do this and managed to leave off the table of contents, as everyone here knows!

 

Hyperlinks? My present copy does not have hyperlinks and I'm not quite sure how they would work... oh, you mean for the online version? Does this actually get any use besides on this forum?

[blackshoe]

Well, obviously hyperlinks in a printed book are pretty useless, but in a pdf (which might be downloaded to one's computer and thus not really "online") they could be useful. I do find myself wishing, from time to time, that the ACBL's pdf of the laws had them.

[gordontd]

Well, obviously hyperlinks in a printed book are pretty useless, but in a pdf (which might be downloaded to one's computer and thus not really "online") they could be useful. I do find myself wishing, from time to time, that the ACBL's pdf of the laws had them.

I think they would be really useful, and I think increasingly people will use downloaded versions of the laws (on smartphones or iPads) at the table.

[gnasher]

The WBF's online version does contain both hyperlinks and a table of contents.

 

http://www.worldbridge.org/departments/laws/internationalcode/international.asp

[axman]

I had an idea for reorganizing the laws. I know there was some effort to do this during the last iteration, which was scotched by the ACBL, but perhaps they'll be more amenable next time. Anyway, here's a rough (and incomplete) outline:

 

Outline of the Laws of Bridge

 

I.Preliminaries

...1.The Pack

...2.The Duplicate Boards

...3.Arrangement of Tables

...4.Partnerships

...5.Assignment of Seats

II.Preparation and Progression

...1.The Shuffle and Deal

...2.Control of Boards and Cards

...3.Sequence of Rounds

III.Correct Procedure

...1.The Auction Period

...2.The Auction

...3.The Clarification Period

...4.The Play Period

...5.Scoring

IV.Irregularities

...1.General Rules

......1.Procedure Following an Irregularity

......2.Assessment of Rectification

......3.Forfeiture of Right to Rectification

......4.Play of a Wrong Board

......5.Authorized and Unauthorized Information

......6.Score Adjustments

...2.Irregularities During the Auction

...3.Irregularities Discovered During the Clarification Period

...4.Irregularities During the Play

V.The Proprieties

VI.Tournament Organization and Direction

VII.Rulings (I think this might better go earlier in the document, but I'm not sure where)

VIII.Appeals

 

Thoughts?

 

I have had reorganizing TFLB in the back of my mind for well over 10 years- but never once has the thought risen close enough to the surface to act on it. And if I were to act on it I believe that my priority would be to locate all of the important stuff [what it takes to play assuming no irregularities] in a contiguous location. In other word, if you tore the section away you could make do. the idea being you would have the fewest pages needed .

 

This then would necessitate having principles as how to dismantle sentences as needed. This can be a rather delicate task. And then there needs to be principles for dealing with the additions that no one knows about yet. This is important because if you are going to arrange thinks so that everyone has to learn where to find them, and then you renumber again when something new does not fit. You get my drift.

 

However, here is the rub. As TFLB now stands, it contains several hundred conflicts within its borders. So, does it make sense to reorganize [errr I mean organize] TFLB before or after the conflicts are removed?

 

The thing about organizing, if you don’t know what the end product is supposed to look like before you start, you’ll be doing an immense number of iterations until you do.

 

Just trying to be helpful.

[mycroft]

I don't mind the structure; but I would want to keep the consecutive Law Numbers (rather than restarting numbering at each section). It's hard enough to specify a Law without being able to talk about "Law 16" or "Law 23" - especially if there are several Laws 1 (even if it's a I.1, II.1,...) Highly doubt it will happen, especially with Grattan's suggestion on how the LC are looking at the LB revision.

 

second and third the hyperlinks in the next version. It should also be *mandated* to be presented as *a*, if not *the primary* legal format, as an HTML/XML document, readable (and searchable, and linkable) on any portable electronic device.

[blackshoe]

The numbering scheme above is an artifact of the outline function in OpenOffice. I would not have two laws in different parts of the book both labeled "Law 1". <_<

[barmar]

The WBF's online version does contain both hyperlinks and a table of contents.

 

http://www.worldbridge.org/departments/laws/internationalcode/international.asp

Thank you! I've been using the PDF version for years, it's such a pain scrolling through it.

[bluejak]

Does not look very easy to download: does it work?

 

As for the PDF version, now PDF has Comments I have done my own Contents in the Comments so can find Laws easily that way.

[barmar]

There are tools that can be used to download a web page and all the pages it links to. However, this generally only works well if all the links between the pages use relative paths rather than full paths. I looked at the source of the main page, and the links have full paths.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the download tools are able to rewrite the links automatically as they do it, though. I'm not familiar with specifics.